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Bible Stories to Tell Children 


\ 









WILDE'S BIBLE PICTURES. 8. OLIVIER L. MERSON. 

JOSEPH AND MARY, ARRIVAL AT BETHLEHEM. 



Bible Stories to Tell 
Children 


By 

WILLIAM D. MURRAY 

n 



New York Chicago Toronto 

Fleming H. Revell Company 

London and Edinburgh 


Copyright, 1910, by 
FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY 



YU 






New York: 158 Fifth Avenue 
Chicago: 80 Wabash Avenue 
Toronto: 25 Richmond Street, W. 
London: 21 Paternoster Square 
Edinburgh: 100 Princes Street 


©CIA 273224 


To my Mother and 
all other Mothers , those 
best of all story tellers 


Preface 


T HE writer hesitates to add another 
Bible story book to the many good 
ones we now have, but he neverthe- 
less ventures to send forth this book, because 
he believes it to be different from the others. 
The purpose of the author has been to put 
only a few of the old familiar stories into 
modern English, using the constructive imag- 
ination to complete the pictures. We know, 
for instance, that when it became necess’ary 
to hide Moses from the Egyptian soldiers his 
mother and sister must have talked about it ; 
when David came to the place where his 
brothers were in Saul’s army a much more 
extended conversation must have taken place 
than the writer of the history has recorded. 
The author has tried to imagine what these 
people said to each other and to put it in 
words. 

We are only just beginning to recognize 
the great importance of the story in educa- 
tion, and we ought to use it even more than 
we do. It is hoped that these stories will 
serve in some degree as models, so that those 


Preface 


who use this book will be led to put many- 
more Bible stories into their own words, fill- 
ing in such details as any one knows must 
have accompanied the incidents. Any par- 
ent or teacher can do this ; and remember, 
stories must be told with eyes and hands, as 
well as voice, so that the scene is brought 
vividly before the listening child. 

The author wishes it understood that no 
attempt has been made to include all useful 
Bible stories. The ones in this book are only 
a few of those which for years he has been 
telling to little children, and he feels from his 
own experience that if Bible stories are told 
as these have been, lasting impressions for 
good will be made upon the hearts of the chil- 
dren who hear them. 

William D. Murray. 


New York City . 


Contents 


I. 

The Christmas Story (Matt, ii.. 



Luke ii.) 

*3 

II. 

The Story of Noah (Gen. vi.) 

22 

III. 

Disobedient Jonah (Jonah i., ii., iii.) . 

28 

IV. 

A Broken Promise (Ezra i.. Hag. i.) 

34 

V. 

The Faithful Daniel (Dan. vi.) 

4 2 

VI. 

The Boy in the Temple (i Sam. ii.) 

48 

VII. 

David and the Giant (i Sam. xvii.) 

5 2 

VIII. 

Three Brave Young Men (Dan. iii.) 

6 1 

IX. 

Joseph and His Brothers (Gen. xxxvii.) 

67 

X. 

A Story of Two Brothers (Gen. xxviL) 

88 

XI. 

A Kind Daughter-in-Law (Ruth) 

95 

XII. 

The Story of Mordecai and His Cousin 



Esther (Esther) .... 

104 

XIII. 

How They Got Out of Egypt 



(Ex. iii.) 

"4 

XIV. 

How They Got Across the Sea (Ex. 



xiv.) 

124 

XV. 

Through the Roof to the Doctor 



(Mark ii.) 

129 . 

XVI. 

How Elijah Helped a Poor Woman 



(i Kings xvii.) .... 

134 

XVII. 

How the Baby Moses Was Saved 



(Ex. ii.) ..... 

*37 

XVIII. 

Naaman, the Leper (2 Kings v.) 

144 


Contents 


XIX. 

Samson, the Strong Man 0 udges xiii.) 

*53 

XX. 

A Great Victory (i Kings xviii.) 

1 6 1 

XXI. 

A Famous Shipwreck (Acts xxi.) 

1 66 

XXII. 

A Strange Dream (Dan. v.) 

*74 

XXIII. 

Gideon’s Curious Battle (Judges vi.) 

179 

XXIV. 

The Missionary Miracle (John vi.) 

190 

XXV. 

The Missionary and the Slave 



(Philemon) ..... 

*97 

XXVI. 

How Jesus Rose Again (Matt, xxviii.. 



John xx.) ..... 

205 


I 


Illustrations 


Joseph and Mary (Arrival at Bethelem) 

Daniel in the Den of Lions 
Elimelech and Naomi 
Holy Women at the Tomb 


. Frontispiece 

Facing page 

• 45 

• • 99 

. . 207 


II 


I 


The Christmas Story 

L ONG, long ago, before the first Christ- 
mas, in a country far away across the 
sea, a lot of people lived, who were 
called Jews. God had given them the most 
wonderful book in the world — the Bible ; that 
is, they had the part of the Bible called the 
Old Testament. The land in which these 
people lived was not like our happy country, 
for they were ruled by kings who were often 
very cruel and wicked. If the king wanted 
to he could even kill people and no one 
could stop him. The people who lived there 
didn’t know how to be kind ; for if a poor 
man became crazy, instead of taking care of 
him, as we would do now, they just turned 
him out in the fields to take care of himself, 
to live or die ; and in some places they made 
men fight with wild animals, while great 
crowds of people sat in safe places and 
laughed at it as if it were fun. 

But in their Bible the people of Palestine, 
for that was the name of their country, had 
read that a wonderful child was to be born 

13 


14 The Christmas Story- 

some day. The old time preachers, who 
were called prophets, and whose sermons 
they found written in their Bible, had told 
them that some day this baby would be born 
and that He would become their king and 
would be good to them and would help them 
when their enemies were bad to them. 
So every time a little boy baby came to one 
of the Jewish homes his mother wondered, 

“ Can this be the one the prophets have told 
us about ? ” and always she wished and hoped 
it was. 

At the time we are thinking about, when 
the first Christmas was drawing near, a man 
named Herod was king and he lived in a 
beautiful palace in Jerusalem, a great city 
which was the capital of the country. He 
hadn’t been a good man, and he really had 
no right to be king, so like people who are 
bad he was very often worried about things. 

There were two other places besides 
Jerusalem which we ought to know about. 
One was Bethlehem, a little village not very 
far from the capital. It was the place where 
David, the king, had been born. The king 
at Rome, under whom King Herod served, 
had made up his mind to find out how many 
people he had in his kingdom, so he had 
sent word all over the land that the people ' 


The Christmas Story 

must come together in their home towns to 
be counted. This meant that every one who 
was related in any way to King David would 
have to go to this little town of Bethlehem. 
It wasn’t a very big place ; it was like a 
village ; and of course it wasn’t easy to 
take care of all the people who came crowd- 
ing into it just now. The man who kept the 
little hotel must have had hard work looking 
after all his guests, as the crowds kept pour- 
ing in. 

The other place we must remember was a 
little village, a long way from Bethlehem, 
called Nazareth. This was a very small 
place up on the side of a hill, and was filled, 
I imagine, with romping boys and girls, as 
well as men and women, just like other 
villages. The family in which we are most 
interested wasn’t a family at all yet. But 
there lived in Nazareth a carpenter named 
Joseph, who was a relative of David, and he 
was going to marry a young woman named 
Mary who happened also to be related to 
King David. When Joseph and Mary heard 
the order of the king about going to their 
home town to be counted they knew that 
meant that they must make the long journey 
to Bethlehem. So they started out together. 
I don’t know just how they travelled, but I 


16 The Christmas Story 

think Mary would ride on one of the little 
donkeys they had in that country and Joseph 
would walk by her, leading the donkey. 

Over in another country, how far away I 
don’t know, there were some men whom we 
call wise men. In some way, it may be from 
reading the Bible, they had heard about the 
wonderful child who was to be born : it said in 
the Bible that He was to be called Wonderful. 
They understood He was to be King of the 
Jews, the people who lived in Palestine. Just 
at this time while they were thinking about 
this new king, they saw a bright, new star 
in the sky, and this made them wonder still 
more as to what was going to happen. I 
don’t suppose they knew exactly what to do, 
but perhaps one of them said, “ Let us go 
over to the place where the star is shining 
and see if we can find this new king.” So 
they started on their journey, every one 
taking with him some present to give to the 
king when he found Him. One had some- 
thing made of gold and the others had some 
sweet perfumes. As they walked along they 
were surprised to see the star moving. I 
imagine one of them said to the others, “ Let’s 
follow the star,” and so they did. 

When David was a boy he used to tend 
his father’s sheep in the fields around Bethle- 


The Christmas Story 17 

hem. I think it was in these very fields that 
he had led his sheep by still waters and made 
them lie down in green pastures, just as he 
afterwards told us in the Shepherd Psalm. 
Well, out in those same fields one holy night 
the shepherds of Bethlehem were watching 
their sheep. As they sat there in the quiet 
night, many a time they would talk with 
each other about the wonderful child who 
their Bible told them was to be born some 
day. One would say, “ Don’t you wish that 
baby would come who is going to be our 
Saviour ; who is going to help us against these 
cruel kings who rule over us ? ” And another 
would answer, “ Indeed I do ; I wish He 
would be born this very night.” And no 
doubt the shepherds were there when Joseph 
and Mary came along the dusty road from 
Nazareth that first Christmas eve. Anyhow 
the shepherds were watching their sheep as 
Joseph and Mary went into Bethlehem, their 
home town, to be counted ; and out there in 
the fields those shepherds stayed that night. 

When Joseph reached the village the first 
thing he did was to go to the man who kept 
the inn or hotel to see if he could get a place 
where Mary and he could stay that night, 
for they were tired after their long journey ; 
but the man could not give them any place, 


18 The Christmas Story 

because so many people had come to Beth- 
lehem that every part of the house was 
crowded. Joseph couldn’t think of letting 
Mary stay outdoors in the night time, and he 
just had to find some place where she 
could sleep. Finally the innkeeper said they 
could stay in the stable, if they didn’t mind, 
and, as there was no room for them in the 
inn, Joseph said all right. I should like to 
have seen them as they were getting their 
strange bedroom ready, putting down fresh 
new straw and making it as comfort- 
able as possible. Of course the sheep 
wouldn’t be there ; they were out in the fields 
with the shepherds ; but I feel pretty sure 
that the cows were there looking with big, 
wondering eyes at the people who had come 
to live in the barn. After a while it grew 
dark and everything was quiet ; night had 
come and the people had settled down and 
gone to sleep ; all the animals were resting 
quietly. 

But outdoors in the sky over the fields 
where the shepherds were watching their 
sheep a strange thing was happening. A 
curious light had driven away the darkness 
of the night and the shepherds were greatly 
frightened : they had never seen anything 
like that before. And then while they were 


The Christmas Story 19 

wondering what it was all about they were 
frightened still more by seeing an angel 
standing near them who said, “ Don’t be 
afraid. I have brought you good news. 
The baby you have been hoping for so long 
has been born over there in Bethlehem. 
You will find Him in a stable, wrapped up in 
His baby clothes, lying in a manger.” And 
then a great crowd of angels appeared in the 
sky and began to sing, “ Glory to God in the 
highest, and on earth peace, good will to 
men.” And it was all true. That night as 
Mary and Joseph were resting in the barn a 
little baby boy came to them, a little boy 
whom an angel had once told Joseph was to 
be called Jesus, because that name meant 
Saviour and He was to be the people's 
Saviour. Of course, Mary didn’t have a 
crib all ready for the baby, but she made a 
nice place in the hay in one of the mangers 
and there she laid the baby Jesus. 

I don’t believe it took the shepherds very 
long to run into the village to find the baby 
the angel told them about. And when they 
got there they found other people there, too, 
for they had heard there was a baby in the 
barn ; and then the shepherds began to tell 
the people, who were looking at the baby ly- 
ing in the manger, how the angel had come 


20 


The Christmas Story 

to them in the fields and had told them that 
this was the baby they were all hoping would 
soon be born. The people were greatly sur- 
prised to find that this poor little child was 
really the Christ Child, but Mary remem- 
bered what the angel had told her and she 
too wondered what it all meant. 

In the meantime the wise men, following 
the star, had come to Jerusalem, for they 
thought of course, if a king was to be born he 
must be in the palace in the big city. If any- 
body had told us a hundred and more years 
ago that some day a baby was to be born who 
would grow up to be the great Abraham 
Lincoln, I don’t believe we would have 
thought of looking in a little cabin in the 
woods in Kentucky. We would have looked 
for him in some great city : and that is what 
these men did. So they began to ask, 
“ Where is He that is born King of the Jews ? 
We saw His star, and we have come to wor- 
ship Him.” No one could tell them. By and 
by news of these strange looking men reached 
King Herod in his palace and when he heard 
that they had come looking for a new king 
who was to be born, he was worried for he 
didn’t want any one else to be king ; and the 
people were worried too, for they knew what 
trouble it made when one king tried to take 


21 


The Christmas Story 

the place of another king. So Herod sent 
for these strange visitors and called all his 
own wise men together and asked them if 
they could tell where this new king was to 
be born. Herod’s wise men answered that 
He was to be born in Bethlehem, for it said so 
in the Bible, and they read it to him. Then 
he spoke to the strange wise men and asked 
them all sorts of questions about the star and 
their journey, and said to them, “ You go to 
Bethlehem, for that’s where He’s to be born ; 
find out all you can about this child and come 
back and tell me so that I can go there to 
worship Him too.” Herod didn’t really want 
to worship Him, he wanted to destroy Him. 

They listened to what the king said, and 
then started for Bethlehem, and as they 
started, there in the sky above them they 
saw again the beautiful star, which had been 
leading them, and which now led the way 
again. This made them very happy, and as 
they walked the star went before them until 
it stood over the house where the Christ 
Child was. They went into the stable and 
there they saw Mary and the baby Jesus. 
They bowed down and worshipped Him and 
took out the presents they had brought and 
gave them to Him : the golden things and the 
sweet perfume. 


II 


The Story of Noah 

L ONG, long ago, when God looked 
upon the earth He saw so many bad 
people that He was sorry He had 
made it at all ; for everywhere He looked 
He saw people doing all sorts of wrong 
things. But there was one family of good 
people, people who loved God and tried to 
do what God wanted them to do. The 
father’s name was Noah, and he had a wife 
and three sons. These boys’ names were 
Shem, Ham and Japheth and each of them 
had a wife. And because Noah was good 
God was his friend ; so one time He came to 
Noah and said, “ Noah, I shall have to des- 
troy everybody on the earth ; they are so 
bad I can’t stand it any longer. But I want 
to save you and your family. I want you to 
make a boat, for I am going to make it rain 
so hard and so long that the earth will be 
flooded and everything on the earth shall 
die.” And then God told Noah all about how 
the boat, or ark as it was called, was to be 


22 


2 3 


The Story of Noah 

built. It must have looked like a house on a 
boat. Then God spoke to Noah again, and 
said, “ After the ark is built I want you to 
take your wife and your sons and their wives 
and go into the ark ; and you must take with 
you two of every kind of animal as well as of 
birds that fly in the air and the insects which 
creep on the earth ; and you must also take 
enough food for yourself and your wife and 
your sons and their wives, as well as for all 
the animals.” 

Noah was greatly surprised, but he went 
right to work ; what else could he do ? God 
had told him what he was to do and that was 
enough for him ; he did it. 

You should have seen Noah, and Shem 
and Ham and Japheth when they began to 
build that great boat. There wasn’t any 
water near their home ; it seemed very strange 
to their neighbours. They called out to the 
carpenters who were working at it, “ What 
are you making?” and the carpenters an- 
swered back, “ A boat.” “ Why, what do 
you want with a boat ? you can’t sail it any- 
where, there’s no water.” And the carpen- 
ters said, “ That’s so ; we don’t see what any- 
body wants a boat for.” And by and by 
Noah came out and told the people how dis- 
pleased God was with them because they had 


2 4 


The Story of Noah 

disobeyed Him, and how He was going to 
send a flood upon the earth, and how He had 
told him to make this boat so that when the 
flood came he might save his family. And 
do you know I think some of those people 
would laugh and say, “ What a queer thing 
that is Noah is doing over there in his yard ; 
the idea ; you couldn’t flood this earth.” But 
Noah and Shem and Ham and Japheth kept 
right on working, for they believed that what 
God said was true. 

Then one day it began to rain, and of 
course the people didn’t think very much 
about it at first, for they often had rain- 
storms ; but after a while when they looked 
over where the ark was standing they saw 
a strange procession, for the animals and the 
birds and the bugs were going into it two 
by two ; and of some, like the pigeons, there 
were more than two ; lots of food was being 
carried in ; perhaps some of Noah’s neigh- 
bours helped to carry it. At last all the 
animals and birds and bugs were in the ark 
and Noah and his wife, and Shem and Ham 
and Japheth and each of their wives went in 
and God shut the door after them. I don’t 
know what the other people did when they 
saw what had happened. Pretty soon Noah’s 
neighbours began to wonder whether what 


25 


The Story of Noah 

Noah had told them about a flood might not 
be true ; and it rained and rained, harder and 
harder, and by and by the ark began to float 
and as Noah looked out he could see the 
water getting deeper and deeper, until at 
last one day he looked out and he could see 
nothing but water : the trees were covered, 
the high mountains were covered, and no- 
body was left on the earth besides himself 
and his wife and Shem and Ham and Japheth 
and their wives and the animals and birds and 
bugs which had come into the ark with them. 
Many times while they were in the ark Noah 
got his family together and kneeled down 
and thanked his heavenly Father for telling 
them about the flood and saving them when 
so many people had to be destroyed. 

For five months, as long as July and 
August and September and October and 
November, they sailed around in the rain in 
the ark, until God saw that it was time to let 
them come out. Then one day the rain 
stopped and the water began to dry up, and 
after they had been shut up in the ark for 
one hundred and fifty days the great boat 
stuck fast on a mountain, the top of which 
was just a little under the water. By and by 
Noah opened a window in the roof and let 
out a raven, but he flew away or else he 


26 


The Story of Noah 

found something floating in the water on 
which he could rest for he never came back. 

Then Noah let a pigeon go, to see if the 
water had really dried up, but pretty soon 
the pigeon came back all tired out, because 
there wasn’t any place to light on except the 
ark. This of course showed Noah that the 
earth was still under water. He waited a 
whole week before trying again and then let 
out another pigeon, and this time it came back 
at evening with some leaves in its mouth ; 
so Noah knew that the water was drying 
up so that some of the trees were out and 
that very soon he could go out. And finally 
at the end of another week he let out another 
pigeon and this one didn’t come back at all, 
because it must have found a tree or a house 
or something not covered with water on 
which it would rest. And as he looked out 
day by day Noah saw more and more of the 
land getting dry until it was all dry again. 

And God spoke to him and said, “ Come 
out of the ark, Noah, with your wife and with 
Shem and Ham and Japheth and their wives ; 
let out all the animals and the birds and the 
bugs and start a new world.” And Noah 
went forth, and his wife and his sons and his 
sons’ wives with him ; every beast, every fowl 
and every creeping thing went out of the ark. 


2 7 


The Story of Noah 

Do you think Noah was glad ? Do you 
think he wondered what had become of all 
his friends, the people who used to live near 
him and who wondered why he was building 
a boat on the dry land ? Do you think he 
remembered as long as he lived how good 
God had been to him ? I do. And I think 
Noah sometimes would wonder whether or 
not there would be another flood, and as he 
looked at his children and grandchildren he 
would wonder whether they would be good 
so that God would take care of them ; or bad 
so that God would have to punish them. But 
God isjikea kind father and He loved Noah, 
so one day He said to him, “ Noah, you 
needn’t worry ; there will never be another 
flood ; I will put the rainbow in the clouds, 
so that every time you look up into the sky 
when there are clouds and rain, and it looks 
as if a flood might be beginning, you will 
remember My promise and feel safe.” 


Ill 


Disobedient Jonah 

W E sometimes think that God doesn’t 
care for people who are far away 
from us ; they seem to us to be far 
away from Him, too ; and we call them 
heathen. But this isn’t true : God has 
always been anxious that every one should 
know about Him, and that those of us 
who do know should tell the others who do 
not know Him. He has always been sorry 
for those who lived in countries where they 
hadn’t yet heard about Him. In the days 
long ago there was a great heathen city 
called Nineveh, in which there were thou- 
sands and thousands of people, none of whom 
knew anything about our God. They had 
gods of their own. For many years these 
people who lived in and about the great city 
of Nineveh had been very bad to God’s 
people, the Israelites, so that these Israelites 
hated them, and thought God didn’t care 
anything about them. But all the time God 
was thinking about them, and one day He 
28 


Disobedient Jonah 


29 


called one of His servants named Jonah, who 
was what we call a minister, but was then 
called a prophet, and said to him, “Jonah, I 
have seen how wicked those people in 
Nineveh are, and I want you to go and tell 
them what will happen if they keep on.” 

Jonah was greatly surprised at being asked 
to go on such an errand. He was an Israel- 
ite, and like other Israelites, he didn’t think 
God cared for anybody but Israelites, and 
really he didn’t want God to be good to any- 
body except the Israelites. Jonah knew how 
bad the people of Nineveh had been to his 
own people and he hated them. So he said 
something like this to himself, “ I won’t go ; 
I know God can be kind, for He has been 
kind to us many times ; He just wants to be 
good to those heathen people, and I want 
Him to punish them : I won’t go.” Then, 
when his mind was made up, Jonah felt that 
he must go away somewhere, and the further 
it was from Nineveh the better he would like 
it. He seemed to think he could get where 
God couldn’t find him. So he hurried as 
much as he could and went to a place called 
Joppa on the seashore. At last he found a 
ship that was going to sail for Tarshish, a 
place in Spain. This was in exactly the 
opposite direction from the one in which 


3 ° 


Disobedient Jonah 


God had told him to go. He bought a ticket 
for Tarshish and when the ship sailed Jonah 
was on board. 

But God made a great wind blow which 
made the sea so rough that it looked as if 
the boat would be swamped. The sailors, 
who were heathen, were frightened, and be- 
gan to throw overboard everything they 
could, to make the ship lighter. Then they 
prayed to their gods to save them. Jonah 
must have been very tired, when he went 
aboard, for even in this awful storm he was 
down in his cabin fast asleep. So the cap- 
tain had to go to him and say, 44 How can 
you sleep in this storm ; don’t you see we 
are in great danger? We have been pray- 
ing to our gods but it does us no good ; now 
you get up and pray to yours and ask Him 
to save us.” 

In those days they had a curious way of 
finding out who had done anything wrong. 
They used to put each man’s name on a piece 
of paper and put all the papers into a basket. 
Then they would shake the basket, and 
the name on the first paper which jumped 
out they thought was that of the guilty man. 
This is what the captain proposed now. 
44 Let us cast lots,” he said, 44 and see which 
of us is the cause of this storm.” They 


Disobedient Jonah 31 

made up the basket, shook it and the first 
paper to jump out had Jonah’s name on 
it. “ Tell us,” the sailors said to Jonah, “ who 
you are, what is your business, and where 
do you live? Why has all this trouble 
come upon us?” Then Jonah said to them, 
“ I am an Israelite ; I worship the God who 
made this sea as well as the land. He told 
me [to go to Nineveh, and I didn’t want to, 
and now I am running away from Him.” 
Then they were frightened and said to him, 
“Oh, Jonah, why did you do this? Is there 
anything we can do to you so that this awful 
sea will get calm ? ” For it kept getting 
rougher and rougher. And Jonah said, 
“ Yes ; there is one thing you can do. I 
know God has sent this storm upon us be- 
cause I disobeyed Him. If you throw me 
overboard the sea will be calm.” 

But the sailors, though heathen, didn’t 
like to do that ; and they rowed as hard 
as they could to get to shore, but the sea got 
worse and worse. Finally they prayed to 
Jonah’s God and said, “ O God, don’t 
drown us all because this man has dis- 
obeyed you ; and don’t punish us for kill- 
ing him.” Then at last, when it seemed as 
if there was nothing else to do, they threw 
Jonah into the sea. 


Disobedient Jonah 


3 2 

But, even then, God was good to Jonah 
and had a great fish ready. When Jonah 
reached the water the fish swallowed him, 
and strange to say, Jonah stayed alive. By 
and by he began to pray to God and after 
three days the fish put him out on the dry 
land alive and unhurt. 

God thought He would give Jonah an- 
other chance, so He said, “ Now, Jonah, I 
want you to go to Nineveh and tell them 
what I said.” And this time Jonah went 
straight there, and began to preach to the 
people and tell them that God would destroy 
them for their sins, if they didn’t stop. 
They had never heard anything like that 
in Nineveh before. But they believed what 
Jonah said, and they were sorry. 

The king told them to pray to God to 
see if He wouldn’t save them. So they 
prayed and began to do good things and 
God said He wouldn’t destroy them. But 
all this time Jonah supposed that God would 
destroy the wicked people of Nineveh, who 
had been so bad to his people, and he went 
outside the city, and built a sort of camp, 
and sat there to see what would happen. 
But when he heard that God was going to 
be good to the people in Nineveh he was so 
angry he wanted to die. God was good to 


Disobedient Jonah 


33 


Jonah again. He made a vine grow up 
in one night, and it covered the camp with 
leaves so that when the hot day came Jonah 
would have some shade. This made Jonah 
very happy ; then when the sun got very hot 
and made the vine wither, he got angry 
again, and the sun beat down on Jonah so 
that he fainted and wished he might die. 
But God said, “ Why, Jonah, is it right for 
you to get angry about the poor little gourd ? ” 
“ Yes, it is,” said Jonah ; and then God said, 
“ Now see, you feel sorry because a vine 
died, which you didn't have to care for, and 
which wasn't worth anything ; don’t you 
think I ought to be sorry for the people of 
Nineveh, thousands of whom are little chil- 
dren?” 

The story doesn't tell us what Jonah’s an- 
swer was, but I feel sure that after that he 
never forgot that God did care for the people 
in Nineveh and in all of the world. 


IV 


A Broken Promise 

ONG, long ago, when God’s people, 



the Israelites or Jews, were living in 


— J Palestine, their heathen enemies, the 
Assyrians, made war upon them, and be- 
cause God’s people had been wicked and had 
disobeyed Him, He used these enemies to 
punish them. In Jerusalem the Israelites 
had built a wonderful temple, which to them 
was the most sacred place in the world. 

But when enemies came over into Pal- 
estine, and got into Jerusalem, they said, 
“ We must destroy this temple. These peo- 
ple think this is the most wonderful place in 
the world ; we’ll show them that it isn’t any- 
thing.” So with their heavy instruments 
they pulled the great stones down and set 
fire to the parts made of wood and when they 
got through with the temple it was anything 
but beautiful. You can imagine how it made 
the people feel to see their beautiful church 
in ruins. And then, as they often did in those 
old days, these Assyrian soldiers got thou- 


34 


A Broken Promise 


35 


sands of the Israelites together, as prisoners, 
and made them march hundreds of miles 
across the desert to Assyria their country, 
and put them in the great city of Babylon 
as their slaves. There they lived a long, 
long time. Some of them didn’t care very 
much and even built themselves houses in 
this strange city to which they were taken. 

And I suppose for a while before they 
got used to them, the Assyrians looked upon 
these Israelites as a queer people, just as we 
would look at Indians if a lot of them should 
come to live in our city, for their faces were 
different from the Assyrians and they dressed 
very differently. And it seems as if the As- 
syrians even used to try to make them sing ; 
I suppose they wanted to hear the strange 
language which the Israelites spoke. But 
the poor Israelites were almost broken- 
hearted and when their keepers would say, 
“ Sing us one of the songs you used to sing 
at home,” they could only answer, “ How 
can we sing our songs away off here in a 
strange land ? ” and they put away their 
harps and other musical instruments. 

So it went on for many years. Some of 
the captives died ; those persons who still 
lived had grown up to be old men and 
women ; lots of babies must have been born. 


36 A Broken Promise 

These old people never forgot Jerusalem, the 
city where their temple had stood. Often 
they must have thought of the beautiful 
building where so many times they had wor- 
shipped God, but now they could only think 
of it as in ruins. No doubt the fathers and 
mothers and the old grandfathers and grand- 
mothers would tell their little children stories 
about the beautiful church which they used 
to have, when they lived in their old home ; 
and they would tell them, too, how the cruel 
soldiers had come upon them and destroyed 
their sacred building and brought them 
away to this strange city. I imagine some 
of them would wonder if they ever would see 
Jerusalem again. 

When the people were taken captive and 
were marched over to Babylon Nebuchad- 
nezzar was King of Assyria ; but at the time 
we are now thinking about he had died, and 
Cyrus had become king in his place. In 
some way God had put it into the heart of 
this heathen king to rebuild the temple in 
Jerusalem. One morning when the Israel- 
ites went outdoors they found in different 
parts of Babylon a notice something like 
this : “To the Israelite captives living in 
Babylon : Your God has told me that He 
wants me to rebuild the temple in Jerusalem 


A Broken Promise 37 

which Nebuchadnezzar’s soldiers destroyed. 
I want to do this, so if any of you want to 
help in this work I will let you go free if you 
will promise to go back to Jerusalem and re- 
store the temple. If any of you do not care 
to go but want to stay here in Babylon, you 
can give something towards the expenses of 
the work.” This would be signed by the 
king. 

I should like to have seen those Israelites 
when they went out into the streets of Baby- 
lon that morning and read that notice. For 
many long years they had been prisoners ; at 
last they could go free 1 To some it seemed 
too good to be true ; they thought it was a 
dream. At last they could go free ! How 
they must have talked it over among them- 
selves. “ Have you heard about the king's 
offer ? ” one would say as he met a friend on 
the street. “ He says that any of us who 
want to go free can do so, if we will go 
back to Jerusalem to rebuild the temple.” 
“Yes,” the other would answer, “I’ve seen 
the notice ; what are you going to do ? ” 
They would talk it over at home : some 
would be anxious to go back, others would 
want to stay in Babylon where they were so 
comfortable. How long this went on I don’t 
know. Anyhow after they had thought it all 


A Broken Promise 


38 

over and those who wanted to go back to re- 
build the temple had given their names to 
the king, it was found that there were more 
than 40,000 of them, counting young and 
old. These people really said to the king, 
“ We will accept your offer : if you will set us 
free we will promise you to go back to Jeru- 
salem and build up the temple.” 

Finally they got started. It was a long 
hot journey, for it was over the desert ; but 
they were happy because they were no 
longer slaves. We are told that they took 
with them two hundred men and women 
who could sing, a sort of choir. I feel sure 
that they must have sung very often the 
psalm which we know as the one hundred 
and twenty-sixth : 

" When the Lord turned again the cap- 
tivity of Zion, we were like them that dream. 

“ Then was our mouth filled with laughter 
and our tongue with singing : then said they 
among the heathen, The Lord hath done 
great things for them. 

“ The Lord hath done great things for us 
whereof we are glad.” 

Besides this great crowd that started back 
to Jerusalem there were a good many of 
the prisoners in Babylon who for one reason 
or another could not accept the king’s offer 


A Broken Promise 


39 

of freedom, but who wanted to have a part 
in the work of rebuilding the temple; so 
they made contributions to the expenses of 
the work. The people who marched out of 
Babylon carried with them these gifts of 
gold and silver and various kinds of goods 
which they were to use in buying material 
for the temple and paying the workmen. 

At last the returning captives reach their 
old home land and find themselves in the 
city of Jerusalem, and they soon see all that 
is left of the grand old temple which had 
been so dear to the people in the past. 

There were some very old men in the 
company and when they saw the ruins and 
remembered how the temple had looked be- 
fore it was destroyed they just cried ; but the 
young men who had never seen the beauti- 
ful old temple shouted for joy — they were so 
glad to be in Jerusalem. By and by, after 
getting settled, they began work — they were 
set free in order to do this work ; they had 
promised the king that they would do it, 
and they started to fulfill their promise. But 
like some other people who make promises, 
they began to get tired and to forget, and 
besides King Cyrus was now a long way 
from Jerusalem. 

They did some work on the temple, but 


4 o 


A Broken Promise 


pretty soon they began to say to themselves, 
“It isn't a good time to build the temple 
now," and it wasn’t long before they stopped 
entirely. 

They kept right on working for them- 
selves, however, although you remember they 
had promised the king that they would build 
the temple and he had set them free because 
they had made that promise, and now here 
they were busy building houses for them- 
selves, and looking after their farms. But 
the farms didn’t do very well : when they ex- 
pected a big crop it turned out a small one ; 
nothing seemed to go well with them. 

I have wondered whether they used for 
themselves the money given to them by 
the people who stayed behind in Babylon, 
for a good many of them seem to have 
had pretty nice houses for themselves. And 
so it went on for one, two, five, ten, yes, six- 
teen long years. 

But God didn’t forget. He wanted His 
temple rebuilt : they had promised to rebuild 
it. God was very patient ; He waited these 
sixteen years, but one day when the people 
are gathered together for a great outdoor fes- 
tival, a strange old man appears among them. 
He waits for a good chance and when they are 
all quiet and wondering who he is, he begins 


A Broken Promise 


41 


to speak. At first they don’t know what to 
make of him, but while they listen they soon 
find out. This old man is Haggai, one of 
God’s preachers, who has been sent to tell 
them what a mistake they were making in 
not keeping their promise. “ How can you 
say it isn’t time to build God’s house ? ” he 
begins. “ Is it right for you to build your 
own houses while God’s house lies waste? 
Think for a moment what has been going on : 
you are not prosperous, nothing that you do 
is satisfactory, your crops are poor, you can’t 
save any money. Think about it. Why is 
it? I’ll tell you: You have broken your 
promise ; you have been disobedient. Gather 
together the wood and the stone and go to 
work on the temple. Keep your promise. 
Obey, and God will bless you.” 

Among those who heard Haggai that day 
was the governor of the country and the high 
priest. They saw he was speaking the truth, 
and so they got the people together and 
started at once to work on the temple. 
“ Now,” said Haggai, “ God will bless you, 
because you are obeying Him.” And after 
they began to keep their promise, everything 
went better with them ; their crops pros- 
pered ; they could save money ; God did 
bless them. 


V 


The Faithful Daniel 

I N the days when the people of Israel, 
who were God’s people, lived in Pales- 
tine, they had a great many heathen en- 
emies ; and one thing these enemies liked to 
do was to send their soldiers over into Pales- 
tine and swoop down upon the poor Israel- 
ites, and carry away as many of them as 
they could. One time when some of these 
foreign soldiers were successful they carried 
away among others a boy named Daniel. 

He must have been a splendid looking 
little fellow, for when the king of the foreign 
country wanted some especially nice-looking 
servants, and asked one of his servants to 
pick out a few of the best looking boys 
among the prisoners, Daniel was one of those 
chosen. And he grew up to be a good man 
there in the city of the heathen king. After 
a while King Darius wanted some men to 
help him rule his country and when he ap- 
pointed three men to be at the head of the 
government, Daniel was chosen again ; he 
was one of the three. 


42 


The Faithful Daniel 


43 

Now there was one thing Daniel learned 
when he was a boy at home and that was to 
pray to his heavenly Father. I suppose his 
mother taught him ; and although he was a 
long way from home, and among strangers 
who were heathen, he never forgot this, but 
morning, noon and night he kneeled down 
and asked God to take care of him. Some 
people thought he was too religious. But at 
the same time he was the smartest man 
among them, so much so that King Darius 
thought it would be a good thing to make 
Daniel the ruler of the whole country. 

The other men were very jealous. They 
got so that they couldn’t stand Daniel ; I sup- 
pose that when they wanted to steal things 
from the king, Daniel wouldn’t let them, so 
they said, “ We must get rid of Daniel ; we 
can’t do anything while he is around.” But 
when they thought it over and wondered 
what they could complain about to the king, 
they couldn’t find a thing that he had done 
that was wrong. Finally they said to each 
other : “ There’s only one way ; he doesn’t 
worship our gods ; we’ve got to find some- 
thing about his religion.” Then they talked 
it over again and laid a trap for Daniel. They 
thought they would catch him ; but we shall 
see. These wicked men knew that in that 


44 


The Faithful Daniel 


country after the king had made a law it 
couldn’t be changed. So they said, “Let’s 
go and tell the king that we want a law 
made that if anybody prays to any god or 
any man except the king, for a whole month, 
he must be thrown into the lions’ den ; Daniel 
will keep on praying to his God and we’ll 
have him. It won’t take the lions long to 
destroy him.” 

This seemed so good to them that they 
went right to King Darius and said, “O 
king, all the men whom you appointed to 
help you rule your country have agreed to 
ask you to make a law that if anybody dur- 
ing the next month prays to any god or any 
man, except you, he must be thrown to the 
lions.” Now this wasn’t true ; not all of 
them had agreed to this ; the very man the 
king thought the most of, Daniel, didn’t 
know anything about it. But the king felt 
flattered, and of course when they said all of 
them had agreed he thought that meant 
Daniel as well, so he made the law. 

As soon as it was made these enemies of 
Daniel got it and told everybody, “ The king 
has made a law that if anybody for a whole 
month prays to any god or man except him, 
that man will be thrown in among the lions.” 
After a while Daniel heard it, and do you 




































* 


















. 























WILDE’S BIBLE PICTURES. 525. BRITON RIVIERE. 

DANIEL IN THE DEN OF LIONS. 






The Faithful Daniel 


45 


suppose he said, “ Dear me ; that’s too bad, 
I can’t pray to my heavenly Father for a 
whole month ” ? Not a bit of it. He went 
into his house and kneeled down by the open 
window and prayed just as he had always 
done, morning, noon and night, and anybody 
going by could see him praying. I imagine 
some of his friends thought he was foolish, 
and told him that if he must pray he would 
better go further back into the room where 
people couldn’t see him ; but he kept on. 

Of course his enemies were greatly pleased ; 
they thought they had him now. They 
rushed off as fast as they could run to 
the palace, found the king and said, “ O king, 
didn’t you make a law that if anybody prayed 
to any God or any man except you for a 
month he would be thrown to the lions?” 
“Yes,” said the king, “I did ; and that law 
can’t be changed.” Then they told him that 
Daniel still prayed to his God three times a 
day. I wish you could have seen the king 
when he heard that ; he began to think that 
these men were playing a trick on him, for 
he really loved Daniel. He was greatly pro- 
voked and he called together the men who 
were his lawyers and they worked until the 
evening to find some way to save Daniel. 
The men who had fixed this trap for Daniel 


The Faithful Daniel 


46 

got very anxious ; it looked as if they were 
going to fail, and at last they went to the 
king and said, “ You mustn’t forget that when 
once you make a law it can’t be changed,” 
and the poor king had to say, “ I know it ; 
that’s so.” And when it began to get dark 
he sent for Daniel, and said to him, “ Your 
God will take care of you, I know,” and then 
Daniel was thrown into the lions’ den, and a 
big stone was put over the mouth of the cave 
where the lions lived. 

Usually in the evening King Darius would 
have some kind of entertainment in the 
palace, dancing or music of some sort, but 
this night he wouldn’t let anybody play 
music; he just walked up and down in his 
room and the servants saw by the way he 
shook his head that something was troubling 
him. By and by he went to bed, but it was 
no use ; he could not sleep ; he kept think- 
ing all the time of that poor man down 
among the lions, and every once in a while 
he would say to himself, “ I wonder if his 
God is really able to take care of him ; I 
hope He is.” How glad he was when day- 
light came. He got up while it was still 
very early, and ran as fast as he could and 
when he came to the lions’ den he had a 
servant lift up the stone and he called out 


The Faithful Daniel 


47 


with a trembling voice, “ O Daniel, has your 
God taken care of you?” Then there came 
up a very quiet voice that said, “ Why, yes, 
O king, my God sent His angel and shut 
the mouths of the lions ; they haven’t hurt 
me a bit. This was because I have done 
nothing wrong.” Then the king was glad ; 
he called his servants and said, “ Take 
Daniel up out of the den,” and when he 
came out they looked at him and didn’t find 
a single scratch. Then the king was angry, 
and he sent for the wicked men who had 
made him do this bad thing to Daniel and 
had them thrown into the den of lions, who 
very soon destroyed them. 


VI 


The Boy in the Temple 

T one time there was a temple in a 



place called Shiloh, where the people 


JL JL used to go to worship. Eli was the 
priest, and he had two boys whose names 
were Hophni and Phinehas. They were also 
priests, but I am sorry to say that they were 
not good young men, and did not help their 
father very much. They did many things 
that were wrong and sometimes made their 
father Eli very sorrowful. 

The people came up to this temple once a 
year for a great festival, and among those 
who came were a man and his wife, named 
Elkanah and Hannah. Hannah was very sad 
because God had never given her a little baby 
boy, and when she went up to the temple the 
thing she would pray for most was that a 
little boy might be sent to their home. She 
even told God in her prayers that if He would 
give her a baby boy she would give him 
back to Him forever. And by and by a little 
baby did come to her home, and because she 


The Boy in the Temple 


49 

was sure that God had sent him, she named 
him Samuel, which means “ Asked of God.” 

How Hannah loved that little boy and what 
good care she took of him ! She remembered 
that she had promised to give him to God, 
so she wanted him to be the sweetest little 
boy that ever grew. When he was still quite 
a baby, just old enough to get along without 
his mother, she took him to the temple. 
There she spoke to Eli and said, “ This 
is the little boy for whom you heard me 
praying; I promised God that if He would 
give a baby boy to me, I would give the boy 
back to Him forever ; so I have brought him 
to you that he may grow up here in the tem- 
ple with you.” Eli took little Samuel into the 
temple and his father and mother went back 
home. How they must have missed the little 
fellow, for they only saw him once a year, 
when they came to the festival, but they knew 
that he was in a good place and that no harm 
could come to him there with Eli. His 
mother often thought of him as she made 
clothes for him which she took to him when 
she went with his father to the temple on their 
yearly visit. I think that when he was old 
enough he would write letters to his mother, 
although in those old days it wasn’t as easy 
to send letters as it is now. 


50 The Boy in the Temple 

I don't know exactly what this little boy 
did in the temple, but little as he was Eli 
gave him some kind of work to do and what- 
ever it was we may be sure he did it well, for 
everybody liked him. Eli's bad sons were 
not much comfort to him and Samuel seems 
to have helped Eli more than his own boys. 
Both of them, Eli and Samuel, slept in the 
temple, and as Eli was old now and partly 
blind, when he wanted anything he asked 
Samuel to get it for him. 

One night after they had gone to bed, 
Samuel heard some one call his name. He 
thought of course it was Eli, so he jumped up 
and ran in where Eli was and said, “ Here 
I am." But Eli said, “I didn’t call you, 
Samuel ; go to sleep." Samuel hadn’t been 
in bed very long before he heard his name 
again. He couldn’t imagine how anybody 
else would call him, there in the temple, where 
he and Eli lived, so he ran into Eli’s room 
and said to him, “You must have called me ; 
here I am." “No," said Eli, “I didn’t call; 
go lie down again." So Samuel went back 
to bed, but very soon he heard some one 
calling again, “Samuel, Samuel," and he 
hardly knew what to think. Twice before he 
had gone to Eli when Eli hadn’t called him. 
But he jumped up just the same and ran in 


5i 


The Boy in the Temple 

where Eli was, and once more said: “You 
surely called me this time ; I heard my name 
as plainly as could be ; what do you want? ” 
Then Eli knew that it was God who was call- 
ing this little boy, and that it was God who 
wanted to speak to him, so Eli explained to 
Samuel. “ Samuel, ” he said, “this is God 
calling you. You go back to bed and if you 
hear your name again you will know it is the 
Lord. You must listen to what He has to 
say. When He calls you say, * Speak, Lord, 
for Thy servant heareth/ ” 

Samuel went back to bed once more. He 
must have been rather tired by this time, 
jumping up and down in the night, and some 
boys would have been just a little bit cross. 
But as soon as he heard his name again he 
seems to have been as sweet and gentle as 
he was the first time the voice called, for he 
answered at once, “Speak, Lord, for Thy 
servant heareth.” He meant that he was 
ready to hear whatever God had to say to 
him ; and not only to hear it but to obey 
it. And because he was so ready to hear, 
after that, God told him some wonderful 
things which He didn’t tell to anybody else. 
God always tells His best things to those 
whom He loves, to those who are willing to 
listen to Him. 


VII 


David and the Giant 

O NE time two armies had come out to 
fight ; one was on a mountain, on 
one side of a valley, and the other 
was on a mountain, on the other side of the 
valley. One army was made up of God’s 
people, the Israelites, and had as its general 
King Saul ; the other army was made up of 
the enemies of God’s people, called the 
Philistines. 

For a long time the soldiers of the two 
armies looked at each other from their camps 
across the valley without doing anything, 
except what I am going to tell you. In the 
army of the Philistines was a giant, named 
Goliath, who used to come out in front of the 
army of Israel each morning and afternoon 
and call out, “Why have you prepared to 
fight? Can’t you choose one of your soldiers 
and let him fight with me ; if he can beat me 
all our soldiers will be your slaves, but if I 
beat him you will have to be our slaves.” 
When Saul and his soldiers heard this they 
52 


David and the Giant 


53 


didn’t know what to do. It didn’t seem as 
if any one of their men was big enough to 
fight with this giant, for he was very terrible. 
He was bigger than anybody they had, for 
he was twelve feet tall ; and he was terrible 
to look at, for on his head he had a great 
brass helmet which shone in the sun and 
he was covered with an iron coat, which 
weighed one hundred and fifty pounds ; even 
his legs were protected by strips of brass. 

He carried a great iron spear which 
looked like a big beam and the head of 
it weighed twenty pounds ; in front of 
him stood a man carrying the great shield 
which Goliath held up when he fought with 
anybody. Twice a day for more than a 
month he came out and stood there and 
called out, “ I defy the armies of Israel ; give 
me a man that we may fight together.” I 
don’t wonder that when they saw him Saul 
and his soldiers were very much afraid and 
said to each other, “ What shall we do? We 
haven’t anybody in our army as big as that 
man Goliath. If we send even our best 
soldier against that great big man he will 
surely destroy him.” And they didn’t know 
what to do. 

Back in the country lived a farmer named 
Jesse, who had eight boys. Three of these 


54 


David and the Giant 


boys wanted to be soldiers and were in the 
army of King Saul ; they saw and heard this 
great giant as he came out in the morning, 
and again in the afternoon, day by day. 
Jesse often thought of his boys in the army 
and wanted to know what they were doing 
and how they were getting along, so he 
called his youngest son, a little boy whose 
name was David. We hear a great deal 
about this boy in the Bible. He was the 
same David who wrote our Shepherd Psalm, 
and he must have learned about sheep while 
he was a boy, for that was his work on the 
farm, to take care of the sheep. They must 
have thought that David was too young or 
too small to be a real soldier. 

But now his father had some good things 
to eat put in a basket, I suppose by the 
boys’ mother, and then he had a little pack- 
age with a present for the captain of the 
company the boys were in ; and he said 
to David, this little boy, “ David, I want 
you to take these things and go out to the 
army. Give the food to your brothers, and 
give this present to their captain. Find out 
how your brothers are, and ask them if they 
want anything.” And David rose up early 
in the morning ; he could hardly wait ; he 
wanted to see those soldiers, and he wanted 


David and the Giant $$ 

to run as quickly as he could on the errand 
his father had asked him to do. He arranged 
with a man to watch the sheep while he was 
gone and took the things his father had pro- 
vided and went as fast as he could to the 
soldiers’ camp. Just as he got there, King 
Saul was getting his army ready to fight ; they 
must have made up their minds not to listen to 
that giant any longer, but to begin a battle • 
and so David found them getting ready to 
march and making a great noise as if they 
were very brave. By and by he found his 
brothers, and while he was talking with them 
out came that great Goliath again and called 
out, so that everybody, even David, could 
hear, “ I defy the armies of Israel ; give me 
a man that we may fight together,” and when 
Saul’s soldiers saw him they ran away. 

The soldiers began to talk to each other, 
and one said, “What a man that Goliath 
is ; what can we do ? They say that if any 
man will fight him and kill him, King Saul 
has promised to make that man a rich man 
and to give him the princess, his daughter, 
as a wife.” David wasn’t quite sure he un- 
derstood what this soldier said, so he asked 
him, “ What did you say the king would do 
for the man that killed that great giant who 
is causing so much trouble to God’s people ? ” 


David and the Giant 


56 

And the man said to David just as he had 
said before, “King Saul will give a great 
deal of money to any one who overcomes 
that giant and will also give him the princess, 
his daughter, for his wife.” 

I am sorry to say that one of David’s 
brothers who was standing there got mad 
when he heard what David, his little brother, 
said. I think it was because David was the 
only one who was not afraid of the giant, 
and this big brother was provoked to think 
that this little fellow was braver than he. So 
this brother, whose name was Eliah, said to 
David, “ What did you come here for any- 
way? I know; you thought you’d see a 
battle, didn’t you? Well, you ought to be at 
home taking care of those sheep of yours ; 
this is no place for you ; we are soldiers, 
we’ll do the fighting.” And then I suppose 
the brother laughed and said to himself, 
“ The idea ; a baby like him fight ! ” David 
didn’t like being treated that way by his 
brothers, so he went up to one of the sol- 
diers and talked with him, until finally the 
soldier told King Saul what David had been 
saying, and how he didn’t seem a bit afraid 
of the giant. So Saul sent for David, and 
when the little fellow came in, and Saul spoke 
to him, David said, “ I wish you wouldn’t be 


David and the Giant 


57 


frightened at the giant ; I will fight him if 
you want me to.” Saul was so surprised he 
hardly knew what to say. “You fight the 
giant? Why, that’s impossible. He is a 
soldier and you are only a boy.” But David 
saw that the king didn’t know how brave he 
was, so he began to tell the king about what 
he had done. “ When I’m home I take care 
of my father’s sheep ; one day a bear came 
after the sheep and another day a lion, and I 
went after them and killed both of them, and 
God didn’t let either the bear or the lion 
hurt me, and I am sure the same God will 
take care of me if I fight Goliath and he will 
soon be as dead as the bear or the lion.” 
This pleased the king so much that he said to 
David, “ Go ahead ; I know the Lord will be 
with you.” 

Whenever they went out to fight in those 
days the soldiers used to cover themselves 
with armour made of iron and brass, to pro- 
tect themselves from the spears and arrows 
of their enemies. Goliath, you remember, 
was dressed in this way when he came out 
day by day. So of course the king and the 
soldiers thought that David ought to wear 
armour ; they had never seen any one fight 
without it. The king was so pleased to have 
some one fight for him that he got his own 


58 David and the Giant 

armour and put it on David, a brass helmet 
on his head and an iron coat on his body 
and then gave David his own big sword. 
But when David tried to walk with this heavy 
armour he found it was so heavy and so much 
in the way that it was no use, and he told the 
king he would have to take it off. And he 
did ; he laid aside all the armour and carried 
only his staff that he used when he took care 
of the sheep, maybe the very one he used 
when he killed the bear and the lion ; and 
over his back was his shepherd’s bag, in which 
he used to carry things when he was out in 
the fields with his sheep. Now David had a 
good deal of spare time while the sheep were 
resting or feeding quietly, and like all boys 
he liked to throw stones ; so he used to make 
slings and practice throwing stones with 
them, until he learned to throw straight. 

As he went out he had one of these slings 
in his hand. He knew smooth stones would 
go straighter than rough ones, and he knew 
where to look for them, so down to a brook 
he went and picked out five smooth ones 
and put them in the bag by his side. Now 
he was ready, and there stood that giant 
with the man with his shield, and all cov- 
ered with iron and brass, with his sword 
and spear in his hands, in front of his army, 


David and the Giant 


59 


as David walked out in front of Saul’s army. 
I wonder what his brothers thought as they 
saw their little brother going out really to 
fight that terrible giant ; and what must those 
frightened soldiers have thought as they saw 
this brave little boy walk up so boldly to 
where Goliath stood ? Poor Goliath, he 
didn’t know what to make of it. He looked 
at David and saw only a stick in his hand. 
I don’t suppose he could see the sling. He 
must have thought that David expected to 
hit him with the stick as a man would hit a 
dog. So he called out to David, “Come 
over here and I will kill you and let the birds 
and animals eat you.” 

But David answered, “ Goliath, you don’t 
understand ; the army of Israel has a God, 
and I come from Him ; He is the one who 
is going to fight you, and you will be killed, 
so that everybody may know that our God 
is a great God who doesn’t need swords 
and spears such as you have ; this is His 
battle and He will win it.” Then Goliath 
was angry and he started towards David ; 
but David reached into his bag, took out one 
of those smooth stones, put it in his sling, 
ran towards the giant, swung the sling 
around his head two or three times, then let 
go : out flew the stone right straight at Go- 


6o 


David and the Giant 


hath and struck him so hard right on the 
forehead that it sunk in and killed him. 
When David saw that the giant was dead he 
ran up to him and with Goliath’s own sword 
cut off his head. And how the Philistines 
and the enemies of God’s people did run, 
when they saw their champion dead ! Saul’s 
army ran after them, shouting and singing 
for joy because their enemies were overcome. 
And when they came marching home the 
women came out in great crowds to welcome 
the victorious army and to sing for David the 
brave shepherd boy and Saul the king. 


VIII 


Three Brave Young Men 

A GREAT heathen king, Nebuchad- 
nezzar, once came over from Baby- 
lon to Palestine with his soldiers and 
carried away as prisoners a lot of Hebrews, 
the people who lived there and who wor- 
shipped the true God. Among them were 
three young men named Hananiah, Mishael 
and Azariah. After these men had lived in 
Babylon a while the king asked his servants 
to pick out some of the best-looking prison- 
ers, and train them to be his special servants. 
So these three young men were chosen. This 
was because they were beautiful to look at and 
were very intelligent. Then their names were 
changed to Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed- 
nego. After they had been in this heathen 
country for some time they were so useful 
that they had been promoted to important 
places in the government. But the people 
of the country didn’t like this; they didn’t 
like to see these foreigners holding important 
offices. 

61 


62 Three Brave Young Men 

One time Nebuchadnezzar, the king, had a 
great golden image made and when it was 
finished he told all the people to come to the 
dedication. Then he had a man go around, 
and blow a trumpet, while another man 
called out so that every one could hear, 
“ When you hear the sound of the cornet, 
flute, harp, sackbut, psaltery, dulcimer, and 
all kinds of music fall down and worship the 
image the king has set up. If anybody 
doesn’t fall down and worship it he will be 
thrown into a burning fiery furnace.” 

And then almost all of the people came 
and bowed down on their knees and wor- 
shipped the image which the king had set 
up. But these men, Shadrach, Meshach 
and Abednego didn’t; so some of the peo- 
ple, who didn’t like them, went to the 
king and said, “ O king, you said that 
when the people should hear the sound of 
the cornet, flute, harp, sackbut, psaltery, 
dulcimer and all kinds of music, they must 
fall down and worship the golden image 
which you have set up. There are some 
Hebrews here who have not obeyed you, 
Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego ; they 
won’t worship the golden image. They 
don’t care for you.” 

This made the king very angry, because 


Three Brave Young Men 63 

he expected every one to obey him ; and he 
said, “ Bring Shadrach, Meshach and Abed- 
nego here to me.” When they came in the 
king said, “ Is it true, Shadrach, Meshach 
and Abednego, that you do not worship the 
golden image I have set up? Now I will 
give you another chance; if when you hear 
the sound of the cornet, flute, harp, sackbut, 
psaltery and dulcimer and all kinds of music 
you will fall down and worship the image I 
have set up, very well ; if you don’t, you will 
be thrown into a burning fiery furnace.” 

Then these young men, Shadrach, Me- 
shach and Abednego, showed how brave 
they were, for they spoke right up and said, 
“ O King Nebuchadnezzar, the God whom 
we worship can save us from the burning 
fiery furnace if He wants to ; but even if He 
shouldn’t save us we will still worship Him 
only ; we will not worship the golden image 
you have set up. We can only worship 
God.” 

You can imagine how angry this made the 
king. He wasn’t used to having people 
speak to him in that way ; his people always 
obeyed him at once in anything that he said, 
no matter what it was, and here were three 
Hebrews who wouldn’t obey him. He called 
some servants and said, “ Make the furnace 


64 Three Brave Young Men 

ready; make it seven times hotter than 
usual. Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego 
refuse to worship the golden image I have set 
up, and I am going to have them thrown 
into the burning fiery furnace.” The serv- 
ants prepared the furnace and when it had 
burned up and was so hot that no one could 
go near it, the king called some of his 
strongest soldiers, and said to them, “Take 
Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego just as 
they are ; tie their hands and feet as fast as 
you can, and throw them in the furnace.” 

The soldiers took them with their hats, 
coats and all the rest of their clothes on, tied 
their hands and feet and threw them one by 
one right into the terrible burning fiery fur- 
nace. The king sat where he could see 
what was going on. The fire was awful 
hot ; so hot that when the soldiers who were 
carrying Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego 
came near enough to throw them into the 
fire, as they opened the door of the furnace 
and threw them in, the flames rushed out 
and burned the soldiers to death. And there 
they were, Shadrach, Meshach and Abed- 
nego, with their hands and feet tied so that 
they couldn’t move, lying right in the fire. 

But all of a sudden the people saw the 
king stand up with a look of astonishment 


Three Brave Young Men 65 

on his face. “ Come here,” he called to one 
of his officers. “ How many men did you 
throw into the furnace? Three, wasn’t it?” 
“Yes,” they said, “O king, we threw in 
the three you told us to throw in, Shadrach, 
Meshach and Abednego.” “ And didn’t you 
tie their hands and feet so that they couldn’t 
move?” “Yes,” they said again, “O 
king, we did tie them every one.” “Then 
how is this ? ” said the king. “ Look there ; 
don’t you see four men with hands and feet 
loose, walking up and down in the flames, 
and the fire doesn’t seem to hurt them? 
The fourth man looks like a son of the Gods.” 

Nebuchadnezzar the king was all over- 
come, and he went as near the furnace as 
he dared and called out in a loud voice, 
“ O Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, 
you who worship the real God, come out of 
the furnace;” and at once Shadrach, Me- 
shach and Abednego walked out just as if 
they were coming out of an ordinary house. 
When the king and the great men who were 
with him went up to them and looked at 
them and felt of them they saw that the fire 
hadn’t hurt them in the least. Their clothes 
weren’t burned, nor was their hair singed ; 
they couldn’t even smell any smoke about 
them. Then the king spoke up and said, 


66 Three Brave Young Men 

“ Blessed be your God, Shadrach, Meshach 
and Abednego ; you trusted in Him and He 
has taken care of you. You would rather 
die than worship a God you didn’t believe 
in. After this if anybody says anything 
against your God, I will have him cut to 
pieces and his house destroyed. There 
never was a God who could save people in 
such a burning fiery furnace as this.” 

Then he promoted Shadrach, Meshach 
and Abednego to higher places than they 
had before and they were better off than 
ever. 


IX 


Joseph and His Brothers 

I 

T HERE was once a rich man named 
Jacob who lived in a country called 
Canaan. He had a large family, 
twelve of the children being boys. These 
sons used to help their father take care of his 
sheep, for in those days men who were rich 
didn’t have money as we do now, but they 
had cattle, sheep, camels, oxen and all kinds 
of precious stuff, like linen and silk and satin. 
Jacob seems to have had lots of sheep, for all 
these boys except maybe the two youngest 
ones, Joseph and Benjamin, were shepherds 
of the sheep. The father, Jacob, was espe- 
cially fond of his boy Joseph, who was next 
to the youngest, and he had a very beautiful 
coat made for him. The other boys didn’t 
like this at all, and they began to hate Joseph 
and wouldn’t speak to him. 

Sometimes after he had gone to sleep 
Joseph would dream. One time when he 
was out in the fields with his brothers he said 
67 


68 Joseph and His Brothers 

to them, “ I had a funny dream last night. I 
thought we were all out in the fields each one 
of us tying up sheaves of wheat, when sud- 
denly the sheaf I was tying stood up straight 
as if it were alive and then each of your 
sheaves came and stood near mine and began 
to bow down to it.” Then Joseph’s brothers 
said, “ Do you think that you are going to 
be our ruler?” and they didn’t like it at all. 

By and by Joseph had another dream and 
he told this one to his brothers and to his fa- 
ther. He said, “ I dreamed that the sun and 
the moon and eleven stars bowed down to 
me.” His father didn’t like it and said, 
“ Why, Joseph, do you think that your mother 
and I and all your brothers will some day 
bow down to you ? ” 

One time all the boys except Joseph and 
Benjamin went quite a long way from home 
to find a good place for the sheep to feed. 
While they were there their father Jacob 
wanted to find out how they were getting 
along, so he called Joseph and said, “Joseph, 
I wish you would go and find your brothers 
and see how they are and how the sheep are 
doing and come back and tell me.” As soon 
as Joseph heard he said, “ I’m ready; I’ll go 
at once,” and started off. When his broth- 
ers, who, you remember, didn’t love him any 


Joseph and His Brothers 69 

too well, saw him coming they began to talk 
to each other before Joseph got close enough 
to hear them. One of them said, “ Here 
comes Joseph, the boy who has those dreams 
he thinks are so wonderful ; let’s kill him and 
throw him into one of these old dried up 
wells and when we go back home we’ll tell 
father some wild animal must have eaten 
him up. We’ll see what becomes of his 
dreams.” 

But another one of the brothers, Reuben, 
didn’t like the idea, so he said, “ I don’t think 
it’s right to hurt Joseph.” But they wouldn’t 
listen to him. And Joseph of course was 
frightened and he begged them not to do 
anything to him, but it made no difference. 
Finally Reuben said, “ Let’s just throw him 
into one of these pits ; that will be bad enough 
for him.” His idea was that by and by he 
could come back alone, and pull him out of 
the old well and take him back home. So 
they finally decided to do as Reuben had sug- 
gested. 

When Joseph came they took off his beauti- 
ful coat and threw him into one of the dry 
and empty wells. Then they sat down to eat 
their lunch, just as if nothing had happened. 
While they were eating they looked up 
and saw a lot of men coming on camels, who 


70 Joseph and His Brothers 

were on their way to Egypt to sell their goods. 
It so happened that Reuben was not there, and 
another brother, Judah, said, “ Here’s a good 
chance to get rid of Joseph ; sell him as a 
slave to these men.” And even those who 
before wanted to kill him were satisfied, and 
they pulled him up out of the pit and sold 
him to those men, who took Joseph down 
with them into Egypt. 

By and by Reuben came back, and went to 
the well alone to get Joseph. He looked 
down into it and found that Joseph wasn’t 
there. Then he didn’t know what to do. 
He came up to his brothers and cried out, 
“ Joseph isn’t in the well ; what shall I do ? ” 
But his brothers didn’t tell him what they had 
done. 

After the men had gone away with Joseph 
his brothers took his beautiful coat, which 
you remember they took off before they threw 
him into the pit, and dipped it in the blood 
of one of the kids they had killed. When 
they went home they took the coat with them 
all covered with blood, and showed it to their 
father and said, “We found this coat ; you 
know whose coat it is, don’t you?” Jacob 
knew it at once, and said to them, “It’s 
Joseph’s coat ; a wild beast has eaten him up. 
My^dear son Joseph is no doubt torn to 


7 1 


Joseph and His Brothers 

pieces,” and although his children tried to 
comfort him, it was no use. For days and 
days he cried, and kept saying, “I will 
mourn for Joseph my son until the very 
end of my life,” and nobody could comfort 
him. 


II 

South of Canaan, where Jacob lived, was 
the great country of Egypt. The people 
there did not worship the true God as Joseph 
did, but worshipped animals and images. 
Their king was named Pharaoh, and at the 
time of our story the king had a chief officer 
whose name was Potiphar. The men to 
whom Joseph’s brothers had sold him 
brought him into Egypt and sold him as 
a slave to this man Potiphar, and Potiphar 
took Joseph to live in his own house and 
made him a sort of head servant. Joseph 
you remember was one of those who wor- 
shipped the true God, and because Joseph 
was so good God was good to Potiphar in 
whose house he was living. One day Poti- 
phar’s wife got angry at Joseph and told her 
husband some stories about him which were 
not true, but which made Potiphar so angry 
that he put Joseph in the prison where the 
king’s prisoners were kept. But here again 


7 2 Joseph and His Brothers 

even in prison Joseph’s God was good to 
him and made the captain of the guard 
friendly to him, so that he put Joseph in 
charge of all the prisoners, and whatever 
Joseph did succeeded. 

One time two of the king’s servants, a 
butler and a baker, did something which dis- 
pleased the king, Pharaoh, so he sent them 
to the prison where Joseph was. After they 
had gone to sleep one night, each had a 
dream, this butler and this baker, which 
troubled him because he couldn’t understand 
what the dream meant ; and when Joseph 
came to see them in the morning he saw 
something was the matter, and he said to 
them, “ Why do you look so sad to-day ? ” 
Then they told him that they had had a dream, 
and no one could tell them what the dream 
meant. But Joseph said, “Tell it to me.” 

The butler began : “ In my dream I 
saw a grape-vine with three branches ; and 
while I was looking at it buds came out, 
then blossoms and finally bunches of ripe 
grapes. I had King Pharaoh’s cup in my 
hand and I reached out and took the 
bunches of grapes and squeezed them so that 
the juice ran into the cup.” Then Joseph 
said to the butler, “ This is what your dream 
means. The three branches mean three days. 


73 


Joseph and His Brothers 

Within three days the king will let you out 
of prison and make you his chief butler again ; 
and you will again be the one to hand him 
his drinking-cup. When you get out and see 
the king won’t you remember me back here 
in prison, and ask King Pharaoh to let me 
out? For I was really stolen away from my 
home in Canaan ; and while I have been in 
Egypt I have done nothing that they should 
put me in this prison.” The baker was stand- 
ing there and heard what Joseph said to the 
butler about the dream, so he began : “ In my 
dream I thought I had three white baskets 
on my head, one on top of the other and 
in the one on the very top were all kinds 
of cakes made for King Pharaoh, and the 
birds came and ate the cakes.” Then Joseph 
told the baker what his dream meant: “Your 
three baskets mean three days. Within three 
days King Pharaoh will hang you, and the 
birds will eat your flesh.” The third day 
after that was Pharaoh’s birthday when he 
had a great birthday party for all his serv- 
ants. He called the chief butler out of prison 
and made him a butler again, but the baker 
was taken out and hanged, just as Joseph 
had said. But somehow or other the butler 
forgot all about Joseph and didn’t ask the 
king to let him out of prison. 


74 


Joseph and His Brothers 
III 

For two long years Joseph stayed there in 
prison until one day the king himself had a 
dream which troubled him very much, be- 
cause he couldn’t understand what it meant. 
He called all his wise men but not one of them 
could tell him what the dream meant. The but- 
ler, who had been in prison with Joseph, was 
standing there and heard what was said, and 
when no one could help the king by telling 
him what his dream meant, he spoke up and 
said, “ O king, I remember my faults now. 
When you put the baker and me in prison 
over two years ago, he and I both had dreams 
one night. We didn’t know what they 
meant, but there was a young man named 
Joseph in the prison with us at that time, 
and when we asked him what they meant he 
told us, and what he told us came true. And 
he asked me to tell you about him but I for- 
got. He could tell you what your dream 
means.” When King Pharaoh heard this he 
sent for Joseph and had him brought to his 
palace as fast as he could, and as soon as 
Joseph came in the king said, “ I have had a 
dream ; and they tell me you understand 
dreams and can tell what they mean.” But 
Joseph was modest and answered, “I can’t 
do this ; it’s God who does it ; He will tell 


75 


Joseph and His Brothers 

you what your dream means.” Then King 
Pharaoh began to tell his dream. “ I thought 
I was standing on the bank of the river Nile, 
when I saw seven fat and healthy cows come 
up out of the water and eat the grass along 
the bank. And while I was looking at them 
seven other cows, very poor and thin, worse 
than any I ever saw in Egypt came up out 
of the water. And the lean cows ate up the 
fat ones, and after they had eaten them up 
they were still as lean as before. Then I 
woke up. And by and by I went to sleep 
again and I had another dream. I saw a 
stalk of corn grow up with seven good full 
ears on it; and while I looked at it seven 
poor thin ears came on the same stalk and 
ate up the seven good ears. And now when 
I tell these dreams to my wise men, not one 
of them can tell me what they mean.” 

Then Joseph answered King Pharaoh : 
‘‘God has shown you by these dreams what 
He is going to do. Both dreams have the 
same meaning. The seven good cows mean 
seven years and the seven good ears mean 
seven years ; and so also the seven lean cows 
mean seven years and the seven lean ears 
mean seven years. God has shown you what 
He is going to do. Y our dreams mean that the 
next seven years are going to be good years 


y6 Joseph and His Brothers 

when everything will grow abundantly all 
over Egypt, your country ; but after that 
there will be seven years of famine, nothing 
will grow ; the famine will be so great that 
people will forget all about the seven good 
years. The two dreams mean that God is 
going to do this very soon. Now what you 
ought to do is to find some wise and careful 
man and let him appoint other men who, 
while these good years last, will be gathering 
great quantities of food and putting it in store- 
houses, so that when the seven years of famine 
come and everybody is hungry you will have 
something with which to feed your people.” 

Pharaoh was very much pleased with what 
Joseph said and said to him, “ God has 
showed you these things. We can’t find any 
man wiser than you are ; all my people shall 
be ruled by you.” Then the king took a 
ring off his own finger and put it on Joseph’s 
and clothed him in white linen and put a 
gold chain about his neck. He also gave 
him a chariot in which to ride. And when 
the people saw him they knew he was the 
ruler and bowed down before him. 

IV 

During the seven good years, Joseph, who 
was now next to the king in power, gathered 


77 


Joseph and His Brothers 

a great deal of corn and stored it away, and, 
just as he had said, when these seven years 
were ended the famine began : nobody could 
find anything to eat. Pretty soon the starv- 
ing people began to ask the king to give 
them food, but he said, “ Go to Joseph,” and 
when they came Joseph sold them food. 

The famine was not only in Egypt, but also 
up in Canaan, where Joseph’s old home was ; 
the people there couldn’t get anything to eat 
either. So when Jacob the old father heard 
that there was food in Egypt he sent all his 
sons but the youngest, Benjamin, down to 
Egypt to buy some. Jacob had remembered 
how he had lost one of his little boys, Joseph, 
so he wouldn’t let the other one, Benjamin, 
go away from him. 

It was a long journey from Jacob’s home 
in Canaan to Joseph’s new home in Egypt 
but at last the ten brothers reached it. Joseph 
knew them as soon as he saw them, but they 
didn’t know him ; they thought he was some 
great man, and when they came near him 
they bowed down to the ground. This made 
Joseph think of the dream about the stalks 
and the stars he had had so long ago. He 
made believe he couldn’t understand their lan- 
guage and had a man stand by him who told 
him what they said. He didn’t want them 


78 Joseph and His Brothers 

to know yet who he was. He was rough to 
them and said, “Where are you from?” 
“ From Canaan,” they answered. “ I don’t 
believe it,” said Joseph. “You are spies ; you 
have come to see how poor we are in this time 
of famine.” “No,” they said, and called him 
lord and master, and said they were his serv- 
ants. “ We are not spies ; we are all broth- 
ers and we have come to buy food.” “ I 
don’t believe it at all,” said Joseph. “You 
are spies ; and you have come to see how 
poor our land is.” Then one of the brothers 
spoke up and said, “We are twelve brothers; 
we live in the land of Canaan. Our young- 
est brother is at home with our father and 
one brother is not.” That was all they could 
say about Joseph. Again Joseph said, “I 
don’t believe you, but we’ll soon find out 
whether you are speaking the truth or not. 
One of you must go back home and bring 
this youngest brother you tell me about. In 
the meantime I am going to put the rest of 
you in prison.” So they were put in prison. 
But after three days Joseph felt sorry for 
them so he said to them, “ I worship the 
same God you do ; I don’t want to do any- 
thing that would displease Him. I am going 
to let nine of you take food back to your 
home where you say there is a famine, and I 


79 


Joseph and His Brothers 

am going to keep one of you here in prison 
until you bring this youngest brother to see 
me.” When they heard this they said to 
each other, “ This is because we were bad to 
our brother Joseph ; when he begged us to 
treat him kindly we wouldn’t listen to him.” 
And Reuben said, “ Didn’t I tell you ; didn’t 
I ask you not to hurt Joseph, but you 
wouldn’t listen to me?” They didn’t know 
Joseph understood them, but he did, and it 
just made him cry to hear them, and he had to 
turn his head away so they couldn’t see his 
face. Then Joseph picked out Simeon and 
put him in prison. 

After they had bought the corn they wanted 
Joseph gave them some food to eat on the 
way home, but he told the men who were 
filling the sacks to put each man’s money 
back in the top of his bag. When they got 
their asses loaded they started out on the 
journey home. Pretty soon it was time to 
feed the asses so they opened one bag and 
the man who opened it cried out in surprise, 
“ My money is all here in my bag,” and it 
frightened them, for they thought Joseph 
would think they were thieves, and they be- 
gan to ask each other, “ What is it God has 
done to us?” 

When at last they reached home they told 


80 Joseph and His Brothers 

Jacob, their father, how they had met a man 
in Egypt who thought they were spies and 
who wouldn’t believe anything they said. 
“ We told him there were twelve brothers of 
us ; one was home, we said, and one is dead. 
As soon as he heard we had a brother at 
home he said one of us had to stay in Egypt 
until we brought Benjamin our other brother 
down to show him that we were telling the 
truth. So Simeon had to stay behind.” 

They began to empty the corn out of their 
sacks and there in each man’s sack, right 
on top, was his money. This frightened 
them. But Jacob wouldn’t let Benjamin go 
with them. He said, “Joseph is dead; 
Simeon is I know not where ; and now you 
want to take Benjamin away from me.” And 
even although Reuben declared that he would 
be responsible for Benjamin’s safe return his 
father wouldn’t listen. “ He shall not go 
down with you,” he said ; “ his brother is 
dead and he’s the only one I have left. If 
anything should happen to him it would just 
kill me.” And that was the end of it; they 
couldn’t persuade him to let Benjamin go. 

V 

, Little by little Jacob and his family ate the 
food which they had brought from Egypt, 


Joseph and His Brothers 81 

and hardly anything grew in the field. Every 
little while one of the sons would ask the 
old father if he didn’t think it was time for 
them to go back to Egypt for more food, and 
he would say no, for he remembered how 
Joseph was lost to him, and how Simeon 
didn’t come home, and how they wanted to 
take Benjamin away from him. But the food 
kept getting less and less, and by and by it 
was all gone. Then poor old Jacob couldn’t 
do anything else, so he said to his sons, 
“ You’ll have to go and buy some more corn ; 
but I can’t let Benjamin go with you.” Then 
Judah spoke up and said, “ But it won’t be 
any use to go without him ; the man told us 
so. Send him in my care ; if he doesn’t 
come back with us you can blame me.” 
“ Well,” said his father, “ go ahead. Take 
Benjamin with you. Take also a nice pres- 
ent for the man you met there and take back 
your money. I guess it was a mistake put- 
ting it back in your bags. My prayer is that 
God will take care of you and that you may 
bring back Benjamin and Simeon, too.” 

So they made the long journey again and 
came to Egypt. When they arrived Joseph 
was going out and he looked at them and 
saw little Benjamin with them. Then he said 
to one of his servants, “ Invite those men to 


82 Joseph and His Brothers 

dinner with me to-day.” When the servant 
came and told them Joseph wanted to see 
them they were frightened. They thought it 
must have something to do with the money 
they had found in their bags, and that Joseph 
wanted to have them where he could get 
hold of them and make slaves of them. But 
they had to go. When they came to the 
house they were terribly frightened and one 
of them went up to one of the servants and 
said, “We are not thieves and spies ; we did 
really come to buy food and now we have 
brought back the money we found in our 
bags ; see here it is ; and we have some more 
money to buy more food. We don’t know 
who could have put the money back in our 
bags : we didn’t even know it was there till 
we stopped at a hotel for lunch and opened 
one bag to get some corn to feed our 
animals.” The servant saw how frightened 
they were and felt sorry for them, so he said, 
“ Don’t be frightened ; your God did this for 
you,” and then he brought Simeon back to 
them. As soon as all the brothers were to- 
gether the servant said, “ You are invited to 
dinner with our ruler,” and he took them into 
the house where Joseph lived. Here they 
had time to wash and get their present ready 
for Joseph, and when he came home they 


Joseph and His Brothers 83 

gave it to him and bowed down before him. 
Joseph said to them, “ How do you do ? 
How is your father?” One of them an- 
swered, “ Father is very well,” and again 
they bowed down before Joseph. “And is 
this the youngest brother you told me about ? 
God bless you, my son,” he said, putting his 
hand on Benjamin. This was too much for 
Joseph ; it made him cry and he had to go 
into another room for a while ; by and by he 
washed his face and came back. Then came 
a grand dinner at which they enjoyed them- 
selves very much. All the brothers sat down 
together, but somehow Benjamin got a great 
deal more than any of the others. 

Pretty soon, after they had bought their 
food, it was time to start back. And Joseph 
said to the men who were filling the sacks 
with corn, “ Put their money back again, and 
put my silver drinking-cup in the bag of the 
youngest brother.” They started early in the 
morning, but they hadn’t gone very far be- 
fore a man came running up to them and said, 
“ You mean fellows. The ruler was good to 
you, and here you are running away with his 
silver cup ; that’s a nice way to treat him.” 
The brothers were very angry, and one of 
them said, “ Why do you say that ? Didn’t we 
bring back the money we found in our bags ; 


84 Joseph and His Brothers 

would we do that if we were thieves ? If you 
find that any of us has that cup you can kill 
him and all the rest of us will be your slaves.” 
“ No. I won’t do that,” the man said ; “ I’ll 
make a slave of the one who has the cup. I 
don’t care anything about the rest of you.” 

Then there was a great time ; all the bags 
were taken off the asses and each one was 
opened. First came Judah’s, the oldest 
brother, but it wasn’t there ; then the next 
oldest, but it wasn’t there, and so one after 
the other until they came to the last, the 
youngest, Benjamin’s, and there sure enough 
was the king’s cup in Benjamin’s bag. 

They didn’t know what to do ; they cried 
and tore their clothes, the way people used 
to do, when anything awful happened to 
them. At last one of them said, “ Let’s all 
go back and see the man ; we can’t let 
this man take Benjamin,” so they tied up 
their bags again and started back, a very 
sorry lot of brothers. They found Joseph in 
his home and again they bowed down to him. 
Joseph pretended to be angry and said, 
“ Don’t you know God has told me how to 
find anything that is hidden away ? Did you 
think you could steal my cup and not be 
found out ? ” Then Judah, the eldest brother, 
got up and said, “ I don’t know what to say ; 


Joseph and His Brothers 85 

I don’t see how this thing happened. We 
once committed a great sin and now God is 
punishing us for it. You can make slaves of 
all of us.” “ No,” said Joseph, “ I don’t want 
to punish all of you. I’ll make a slave of the 
one who had the cup ; the rest of you can go 
home.” Judah was terribly distressed, and 
he walked close to Joseph and said, “ Don’t 
be angry with me ; let me say just a word. 
When we were here before you asked us if 
we had a father or a brother. And I told you 
we had ; you remember I said, ‘ Our father 
is an old man, and he has with him now our 
youngest brother, a little boy, and his brother 
is dead ; our father loves this little fellow very 
much.’ Then you said, ‘ Bring him here ; I 
want to see him,’ and I told you he couldn’t 
leave his father ; his father would die. But 
you said there wouldn’t be any use in our 
coming back for more food until the little fel- 
low came with us ; and when we told that to 
our father he said, ‘ I can’t let Benjamin go. 
Joseph went out one day and wild beasts 
destroyed him ; if you take Benjamin away 
it will kill me.’ And now if we should go 
home without Benjamin, the boy our father 
loves so much, it would surely kill him. Be- 
sides I told him before I left home that I 
would be responsible for Benjamin’s safe 


86 Joseph and His Brothers 

return. Let Benjamin go home with the 
others ; take me as a slave in his place. 
How can I go home without him ? ” This 
was more than Joseph could stand, so he 
sent everybody out of the room except his 
brothers and then he said to them, “ I’m 
Joseph ; don’t you know me? Is it true that 
my old father is still alive ? ” 

I wish you could have seen them, Judah 
and Simeon and all. They were so surprised 
they couldn’t say a word. But Joseph said, 
“ Don’t be sorry you sold me to those men 
that day ; God knew there would be a fam- 
ine and He has sent me down here to get 
food ready for you ; He has made me a ruler 
here in Egypt. Go home and tell our father 
that I am alive, and bring him down here to 
live with me. The famine won’t be over for 
five years yet.” Then they kissed each other 
and talked about the things which had hap- 
pened since that day Joseph was sold. 

You can imagine how fast they went back 
to Canaan, with all the food they could carry 
and how they told their old father Jacob all 
about it. As soon as they could they packed 
up everything in their old home, got all their 
wives and children together and came back 
to Egypt where Joseph picked out the best 
land there was, and gave it to them. Here 


Joseph and His Brothers 87 

they built new homes and lived for a long 
time and I think they must often have 
gathered together to hear what Joseph had 
to tell, and to thank God who had been so 
good to them. 


X 


A Story of Two Brothers 

I N the time when the world was not very 
old, and that means a long, long time 
ago, there lived a man named Isaac, 
with his wife Rebekah. Into their home 
were born two boys. The elder of these two 
boys had hair growing all over him, so he 
was called Esau, which means “ hairy.” The 
other boy was named Jacob. These boys 
grew up together, but they were very differ- 
ent, as boys in the same home are now. 

Esau liked to be out-of-doors, roaming 
over the country, and, I suppose, often slept 
in the woods. He became a great hunter. 
He learned to use the bow and arrow, for 
these were what they used in those days. 
Jacob was just the opposite. He didn’t care 
to go away from home. When night came 
you would always find him in his tent, and 
during the day he wouldn’t be far away from 
home. All the people lived in tents then, for 
it was before they had begun to build houses. 
I am sorry to say that the mother Rebekah 
88 


A Story of Two Brothers 89 

loved one boy the best and the father Isaac 
loved the other best. Esau would go out and 
shoot deer and bring them home, so that 
Isaac his father grew to be very fond of 
venison. This made him like Esau, while 
Rebekah, their mother, was more fond of 
Jacob, the boy who stayed at home, and 
helped her when she needed help about the 
tents which were their home. 

In those days when a father died every- 
thing that he owned belonged to his eldest 
son. It is this way in some countries now, 
though not in the United States. This 
meant that when Isaac, his father, died, all 
his property would be Esau’s because he was 
the eldest son. This was called Esau’s birth- 
right ; which means that he had a right to it 
because he was born before any of the other 
boys in the family. A curious thing was 
that this eldest son could sell his birthright 
to one of his brothers if he wanted to. 

So they lived on, this father and mother 
and their two boys, Esau busy with his hunt- 
ing and camping in the woods, Jacob work- 
ing away at home. Jacob grew to be very 
sharp, as we say ; that is he was very good 
at making bargains and getting things for 
himself. I imagine that very often he would 
think about all the things Esau was going to 


90 A Story of Two Brothers 

have some day, because he was the elder, 
and wished that they were his : all the tents, 
and sheep and camels and everything else 
that Isaac had, and he made up his mind 
that when he got a chance he would find 
some way to get these things for himself. 

One day, just as usual, Esau started off on 
one of his hunting trips, and like other 
hunters he sometimes had a bad day. This 
seems to have been one of those bad days, 
for when he started for home he hadn’t killed 
anything, and he hadn’t had anything to eat. 
He was tired out, and nearly famished, and 
felt as if he would faint. Just as he got near 
the tent he smelled something cooking, and 
when he was near enough he saw his brother 
Jacob cooking lentils for supper. 

Esau rushed up and called out, “ Let me 
devour some of that red stuff you are cook- 
ing ; I am so hungry I am going to faint.” 
Jacob must have said to himself, “ Here’s my 
chance.” And instead of doing as a good 
brother would have done he said to Esau, 
“ I’ll give you some, if you will give me your 
birthright.” Poor Esau ; have we not been 
telling people ever since how foolish he was ? 
He began to say, “ What good is my birth- 
right? I don’t care for it. I won’t live to 
enjoy it ; I’m starving ; I’ll die. What I 


A Story of Two Brothers 91 

want is something to eat now, not a lot of 
things after my father dies. Give me the 
lentils, Jacob, and you can have the old birth- 
right.” “ But,” said Jacob, “ you must surely 
give me your birthright; say it surely is 
mine.” So Esau said it surely was Jacob’s 
and sold his birthright for the supper. Then 
Jacob gave him some bread and some of the 
lentils he had been boiling and Esau ate 
them and went away, never thinking any 
more about the precious thing he had sold to 
Jacob for so little. I don’t believe that either 
of them told their mother or father what they 
had done. 

The years went by and Isaac became a 
very old man. He was blind now, and could 
not see his boys, who had grown to be men. 
He still liked to eat the venison which Esau 
brought home from his hunts. So one day 
when he and Rebekah were sitting there, he 
called Esau, and said to him, “ My son, I am 
growing old ; I don’t know how much longer 
I shall live. I wish you would go out and 
shoot some venison for me. Bring it home 
and cook it for me, for I would like to eat a 
little more of it and bless you before I die.” 
There was nothing that Esau liked better 
than hunting and it did not take him long to 
get started. 


92 A Story of Two Brothers 

As soon as he was gone Rebekah went to 
Jacob. You remember she loved Jacob more 
than Esau, so she said to him : “ Jacob, I just 
heard your father ask Esau to bring him 
some venison so that he could eat it and bless 
him before he died. I want you to get the 
blessing instead of Esau your brother. You 
do what I tell you. Get two kids from the 
flock of goats and I will cook them so 
that they will taste like the venison your 
father likes so much ; you can give it to 
him and he will bless you.” Then Jacob 
said, “ But, mother, Esau’s skin is hairy and 
rough, while mine is smooth. Maybe my 
father in his blindness will feel of me and he 
will find out that I am deceiving him and 
instead of blessing me he will curse me.” 
Rebekah answered, “You leave that to me; 
go and get the kids.” So Jacob got the 
kids. Then Rebekah prepared the meat the 
way Isaac liked it, and put the hairy skin of 
the kids on Jacob’s hands and neck, and 
made him put on some of Esau’s clothes, and 
take the meat in to his blind father. As he 
came into the tent where Isaac his father was 
he said, “ Father,” and his father answered, 
“ Who are you, my son ? ” Then Jacob told 
a horrible lie. He answered, “ I am your son 
Esau. Here is the venison you told me to 


93 


A Story of Two Brothers 

get for you. Eat it and bless me.” When 
any one tells a lie one of the worst things 
about it is they have to keep on telling them, 
so when Isaac said, “ How did you get it so 
soon?” Jacob had to tell another lie, and he 
answered, “ God showed me how to find it.” 
But Isaac wasn’t satisfied ; the voice didn’t 
sound like Esau’s ; so he said, “ Come here 
and let me feel you, so that I can see whether 
you are really my son Esau.” When he 
passed his hands over the hairy skin Rebekah 
had put on Jacob’s hands and neck he said, 
“ Your voice is Jacob’s voice ; but your hands 
are Esau’s hands.” This seemed partly to 
satisfy the poor old blind father, so he blessed 
Jacob, although even now he wasn’t quite 
sure, so he said again, “ Are you really my 
son Esau? ” Once more Jacob had to tell a 
lie and he said, ‘‘Yes, I am.” Then Isaac 
said, “ Bring the venison and I will eat it and 
bless you.” After he had eaten his father 
said, “ Now, kiss me,” and when Jacob kissed 
him he smelled Esau’s clothes which Jacob 
had on and they smelled as if they had been 
out in the woods; then he blessed Jacob 
thinking he was blessing Esau. 

Jacob had hardly gone out of the tent when 
in came Esau with his venison. He didn’t 
know what Jacob had done, so he cooked the 


94 A Story of Two Brothers 

meat, and took it in to his father. Isaac was 
surprised and asked him who he was, and when 
he said, “ I am your son Esau,” Isaac was 
greatly excited and said, “Who did you say? 
Who was it that I blessed ? Who brought me 
the venison I have eaten ? ” Esau saw what 
had happened and he began to cry and say, 
“ O my father, bless me too, bless me too,” 
but his father could only say, “Your brother 
has been here and deceived me ; he has 
stolen your blessing.” Poor Esau cried as if 
he were broken-hearted. “ He robbed me of 
my birthright,” he said, “and now he has 
taken away my blessing.” From that day 
Esau hated Jacob and declared that as soon 
as he could he would kill him. When Jacob 
heard this he had to run away from home, 
and for many years he didn’t dare to come 
back where his brother was. This is what 
came of Jacob’s deceit and falsehood. 


XI 


A Kind Daughter-in-Law 

O NCE upon a time a man named Elim- 
elech with his wife Naomi and their 
two boys lived in the little town of 
Bethlehem in Judea. By and by there came 
a famine in that part of the country ; nothing 
would grow and people were starving, be- 
cause they could get very little to eat. Elim- 
elech, of course, felt that he must take care 
of his family, so he looked around and found 
that over in Moab, a country just across the 
Jordan River, the people had more to eat than 
they had in Judea. So he moved his family 
over there. After they had lived there 
a while, how long I don’t know, Elimelech 
died. And then the two boys, who had 
grown to be men, got married. Each chose 
for his wife one of the women who lived in 
Moab, one named Orpah and the other Ruth. 
Both of these young women were good to 
Naomi and for ten years they lived happily 
together in Moab. But a sad day came when 
first one son and then the other died, so that 
95 


96 A Kind Daughter-in-Law 

poor Naomi was left without any husband or 
sons, and Orpah and Ruth were left widows too. 

In some way Naomi had been hearing 
about what had been going on in her old 
country, Judea, and she learned now that 
there was no longer any famine over there, 
for God had made the corn and fruit grow 
again, so that the people had plenty of food. 
I suppose that all the time she was in Moab 
she was longing to get back home, and now 
when her husband and her two sons were 
dead, she made up her mind that the best 
thing she could do was to go back to her old 
home and her old friends. So she started 
back, her daughters-in-law with her. 

Now Naomi, although she loved Orpah 
and Ruth, didn’t feel that it would be right for 
her to take them away from their own fa- 
thers and mothers and their own country, so 
as they walked along she said to them, “ Why 
don’t you go back each of you to your own 
mother’s home? You have been very kind 
to me and I pray the Lord to be kind to you. 
May you find other husbands, each of you, 
and good homes.” Then they kissed each 
other and began to cry. At first both Orpah 
and Ruth said they would rather go to Judea 
with Naomi, and they started on again, but 
she talked with them a while until finally one 


A Kind Daughter-in-Law 97 

of them, Orpah, kissed Naomi and began to 
cry again and at last turned and went back 
home. But Ruth wouldn’t listen to Naomi, 
and when her mother-in-law said, “ Ruth, 
your sister-in-law has gone back home, you 
ought to go too ; it isn’t right for me to take 
you away from your own people into a 
strange land,” Ruth said, “ Don’t ask me to 
go back, for whither thou goest I will go ; 
and where thou lodgest I will lodge ; thy 
people shall be my people, and thy God my 
God ; where thou diest, will I die, and there 
will I be buried : the Lord do so to me, and 
more also, if aught but death part thee and 
me.” And when Naomi found that it was no 
use, that Ruth loved her so she couldn’t bear 
to be separated from her, she didn’t say any- 
thing more about Ruth’s going back home, 
but the two of them, the mother-in-law and 
daughter-in-law walked on together. 

At last, just at the beginning of the harvest 
season, they reached the old home town, 
Bethlehem. It wasn’t a very big place. It 
was more like one of our villages, I should 
say, where everybody knows everybody 
else. So when the people saw Naomi com- 
ing back, with only this strange woman with 
her, there was a good deal of excitement. 
Some of the old people would remember the 


98 A Kind Daughter-in-Law 

time when Naomi and her husband and her 
sons went away, and as they looked at her, 
coming back, poor and forlorn, they said to 
each other, “Can this be Naomi?” When 
she heard them she said, “ Yes, I’m Naomi ; 
but don’t call me by my old name, for that 
means ‘ pleasant ’ ; call me rather Mara, which 
means ‘ bitter.’ For God hath dealt bitterly 
with me. I’ve suffered a great deal since 
I’ve been away.” 

In those days the rich men were the farm- 
ers, those who had great flocks of sheep and 
herds of cattle, and big fields for pasture and 
for growing grain. One of these rich farmers 
just outside of Bethlehem, whose name was 
Boaz, was a relative of Naomi. He was a 
very rich man, and employed a great many 
men and women on his farm. Not only was 
he a rich man, but he was a very good man. 
When he went into the field where his men 
were working he would say to them, “ The 
Lord be with you,” and they would answer, 
“ The Lord bless you.” And he provided a 
place where they could get good water to 
drink and had a luncheon prepared for them. 
He knew that in his Bible there were certain 
rules about farmers, one of which was that 
when a man was reaping his harvest he 
shouldn’t try to rake up the very last wisp 












WILDE'S BIBLE PICTURES. 413. From a drawing . — Luxenburg . alex. bida. 

ELIMELECH AND NAOMI. 



99 


A Kind Daughter-in-Law 

of straw and head of wheat or barley, but if 
some of the grain should be scattered on the 
ground he should leave it, so that the poor 
people could come into the field and pick it 
up. And the poor people did often go along 
in the fields after the reapers gathering up, 
or gleaning, as we call it, the scattered straw 
and grain. 

Ruth was anxious to help her mother-in- 
law, so one morning she said to her, “ Mother, 
let me go over on some farm and glean some 
of the grain, so that we will have something 
to eat.” Naomi was very glad when she 
heard this, and told Ruth to go ahead. So 
Ruth started out. Fortunately, she happened 
to go into one of the fields belonging to Boaz, 
where his servants were reaping barley. 
During the day Boaz came out to see how 
they were getting along, and said to the men 
and women who were at work, “The Lord be 
with you,” and they answered, “The Lord 
bless you.” By and by he saw Ruth. He 
would know as soon as he looked at her that 
she wasn’t a Jew, as he and his servants were, 
for the face of a Moabite was quite different 
from the face of a Jew, just as the face of a 
Chinese is different from our faces. 

I think, too, her clothes would be different. 
Anyhow Boaz saw this strange woman and he 


lOO 


A Kind Daughter-in-Law 

called his overseer to him and said, “ Who is 
that peculiar looking woman over there?” 
“ Why,” the overseer answered, “ that’s the 
woman who came back from Moab with 
Naomi. She came this morning and asked 
me if she could glean after the reapers. I 
told her certainly, and she has worked here 
ever since ; except that she rested a little 
while.” Boaz said, “ Yes, I remember Naomi ; 
she’s a relative of mine. She went away 
some years ago to Moab while we were having 
that famine ; and I heard that one of her sons 
married a woman over there whose name was 
Ruth. This must be she. I’ve heard about 
her. After her husband died, and Ruth’s 
husband died they came to Naomi’s old home 
in Bethlehem ; Naomi wanted her to stay in 
her own land among her own relatives, but 
Ruth wouldn’t do it. She saw that Naomi 
was all alone in the world and poor and old 
and she insisted on coming back with her and 
taking care of her.” Then he called Ruth and 
said to her, “ My daughter, don’t go away 
from my fields ; follow after my reapers until 
the end of the harvest and glean what they 
let fall. If you are thirsty go over there 
where my servants have drawn the water and 
get a drink.” Ruth was greatly surprised, 
and she did as people used to do in those 


A Kind Daughter-in-Law lol 

days when they wanted to be polite, she 
bowed down to the ground and said to Boaz, 
“ Why is it that you are so kind to me, a 
stranger ? ” And Boaz answered, “ Ah, Ruth, 
I’ve heard how good you have been to 
Naomi. They have told me how you have 
left your own father and mother and your 
own land, and have come back to this strange 
land away from all your friends, to be with 
your mother-in-law. I’ve heard how good 
you have been to this poor old relative of 
mine. That’s why I’m trying to be good to 
you. I pray that God, our God, may reward 
you for what you have done.” Ruth thanked 
him for his kind words to her, a stranger. 
Then Boaz told the reapers about Ruth and 
said, “ Don’t be too particular as you are 
reaping ; if she comes right in among the 
sheaves don’t scold her; sometimes you 
might pull out some barley from the bundles 
on purpose and leave it on the ground so 
that she can get it. Don’t be cross to her.” 
When meal-time came Boaz invited her to 
eat with the reapers. I suppose he had told 
them about Ruth’s kindness to Naomi, for 
they too were good to her. They gave her 
not only all she wanted to eat herself, but so 
much that she saved some for her mother-in- 
law. While they were eating Ruth asked 


102 


A Kind Daughter-in-Law 

them who the man was who had been so kind 
to her and they told her his name was Boaz. 
After dinner she went out to the field again 
and worked until evening. Then she sat 
down, and with a stick beat out the heads of 
grain and gathered up the barley and found 
that she had nearly a bushel. 

As it was near night she took the grain 
and went back to Bethlehem to her mother, 
and showed her all she had gathered. Then 
Ruth gave her the bread and corn she had 
saved from the lunch she had with the 
reapers. After supper Naomi said to her, 
“ Ruth, where did you glean to-day ? Some 
one must have helped you.” Then Ruth told 
her all about meeting the kind man and what 
he said to her, and said, “ His name is Boaz.” 

Naomi knew as soon as she saw the barley 
Ruth had brought home that some one must 
have been good to her, so when she heard 
that it was Boaz she was very glad and said, 
“ I hope God will bless him. He’s a near 
relative of mine.” Then I suppose they 
spent the evening talking about Boaz and at 
last Naomi said, “ Ruth, don’t go into any 
other field to glean, but keep right on in 
Boaz’s field.” So all the rest of the season 
until the end of the harvest Ruth gleaned in 
that field which Boaz owned. 


103 


A Kind Daughter-in-Law 

I suppose Boaz must have seen Ruth often 
in the field during the busy harvest season, 
for he fell in love with her and after a while 
she became his wife. By and by when a 
little baby came to the home of Boaz and 
Ruth, the old grandmother Naomi was very 
happy and I haven’t a doubt but that she 
spent a good deal of time, just as grand- 
mothers do, taking care of that precious baby. 


XII 


The Story of Mordecai and 
His Cousin Esther 

O NE time the King of Persia was hav- 
ing a celebration, in Shushan the 
palace, attended by the great men 
of his kingdom ; and his beautiful wife, 
Queen Vashti, was at the same time giving a 
dinner in another part of the palace for the 
women, for it was not considered proper in 
those days for women to go in where the 
men were eating and drinking. But, as too 
often happens, the king drank too much wine, 
and that made him forget what was courte- 
ous, and he sent his servants to tell Vashti 
that she must come in and show his friends 
how beautiful she was. They brought back 
word that the queen refused to come and this 
made the king very angry. When he asked 
his wise men what he ought to do they said, 
“ Turn Vashti out and make some one else 
queen in her place.” This pleased the king, 
for he was very angry, so he turned her out. 
Then there was a great commotion when 
104 


Mordecai and His Cousin Esther 105 

they tried to choose a new queen, for the 
people were anxious that the king should 
have the best woman in the land for his wife, 
for she would be their queen. 

In one part of the city there lived a Jew 
named Mordecai, who once lived in Jeru- 
salem, but had been brought as a captive 
with lots of other Jews into this strange land. 
Among these captives was Mordecai’s uncle 
and his wife, both of whom had died leav- 
ing a beautiful daughter named Esther, 
who was living with Mordecai. When the 
king sent out an order that all the beautiful 
women of the country should be brought to 
the palace so that he could choose a queen, 
for that was the way they did in those days, 
Esther went with the others. Of course 
most of them were Persians, but Esther was a 
Jew ; but nobody knew it, except Mordecai. 
It must have been that she didn’t look very 
much like a Jew. One by one the women 
were brought to the king, but he wasn’t 
satisfied until he saw Esther ; then he said, 
“ Esther shall be queen,” and he put the 
queen’s crown on her head. After that they 
had a great time, with all sorts of dinners 
and parties and presents, when Esther and 
the king were married. 

Mordecai never forgot his little girl, who 


106 Mordecai and His Cousin Esther 

was like his own daughter, and did all he 
could to see that no harm came to her. He 
used to stay as close to her as he dared, sit- 
ting oftentimes in the gateway of the palace. 
One day when he was sitting there he heard 
two men talking. Of course they didn’t 
know that he was at all interested in the 
king, so they weren’t very careful, and Mor- 
decai heard them tell how they were going 
to kill the king. As soon as he could he 
told some of the soldiers and the men were 
arrested and hanged, and the king was 
saved. Then they wrote an account of what 
had happened in a book in which they kept 
the history of the kingdom. 

Things were going on all right until the 
king made a man named Haman ruler over 
the land. This meant that the people should 
reverence him by bowing down to him ; but 
Mordecai, being a Jew, thought it was wrong 
to bow down to anybody except God, and 
he told them so ; he would not bow down to 
Haman. When Haman heard this he was so 
angry that he made up his mind he would 
destroy all the Jews in that country. One 
day when he was talking to the king Ha- 
man said, “ There are a lot of strange people 
living here in Persia ; their laws are different 
from ours and it isn’t safe for you to let 


Mordecai and His Cousin Esther 107 

them live. Let them be destroyed,” and the 
foolish king said, “ Go ahead ; do whatever 
you want with them.” Haman didn’t wait 
long. He got together all the men who 
could write and sent letters as fast as he 
could all over the country. The letters were 
not very long ; each one said, “ Kill all the 
Jews you can find, young and old, on the 
thirteenth day of the month.” 

When Mordecai got hold of one of these 
letters he put on sackcloth, the way they 
used to do when they were very sad, and 
cried bitterly, “What shall I do? All my 
people are to be destroyed ! What shall I 
do ? ” And all over the country when the 
Jews heard what was to happen on the thir- 
teenth, they too wept and wailed. 

When Esther, the queen, heard that her 
Cousin Mordecai was going around in the 
city wearing sackcloth, she knew that some- 
thing was wrong, so she sent one of her 
servants to ask him what was the matter. 
He gave the servant a copy of the cruel 
letter and said, “ Show this to the queen 
and tell her she must go to the king and ask 
him to save our people.” Esther listened to 
the servant and said, “ Go back and tell my 
cousin that no one can go to the king unless 
the king asks him to come and holds out his 


io8 Mordecai and His Cousin Esther 

golden scepter to him ; if he does go when he 
is not invited he will die. The king hasn’t 
asked me for a whole month.” But Mordecai 
wasn’t satisfied with this. He said, “Tell the 
queen that all the Jews are to be killed and 
that means that she cannot escape even if she 
does live in the palace. Tell her that if she 
doesn’t go to the king and ask him to spare us, 
we will be saved some other way, but she will 
perish. Try to make her see that now, just 
when the Jews need help, she, a Jew, has been 
put in a place where she can help them.” 

This touched her heart. She sent a mes- 
sage to Mordecai, “You get together all 
the Jews in the city and pray for me for 
three days and I will go to the king : it is 
against the law : if I perish, I perish.” What 
a meeting that must have been when Morde- 
cai got all those Jews together and they 
prayed to their God that Esther might be 
successful in her talk with the king. On the 
third day Esther dressed herself in her most 
beautiful clothes and stood where the king 
could see her. She looked so sweet that the 
king told her to come near him and then he 
held out the golden scepter to her. Then he 
said, “What do you want, Esther?” for he 
saw she had come to ask him something. 
She answered, “I wish you and Haman 


Mordecai and His Cousin Esther 109 

would come to-day to a dinner I have prepared 
for you,” and the king sent for Hamanand both 
of them went to the dinner. While they were 
there the king said again, “What is it, 
Esther ; what do you want ? I’ll give you 
anything you ask for.” But Esther didn’t 
want to tell him at once what she wanted, so 
she said, “ Come to my dinner again to-mor- 
row and then I’ll tell you what I want.” 

Haman, of course, felt very grand at being 
invited to dine with the king and queen, but 
he couldn’t endure Mordecai who still refused 
to bow down to him. So he got together 
his friends and said, “ What shall I do ? That 
miserable Jew, Mordecai, won’t bow down to 
me, and you all know what a great man I 
am ; why I was the only one, besides the king, 
invited to Queen Esther’s dinner, and I’m in- 
vited again to-morrow.” Then his wife said, 
“ If I were you I’d build a big gallows and 
have Mordecai hanged on it.” This pleased 
Haman and he told the carpenters to build it. 

Somehow or other the king was restless 
that night and didn’t sleep very well, and to 
quiet him he asked one of his servants to get 
the book where they wrote the history of his 
kingdom and read it over to him. He was 
greatly surprised when they read how two 
men had once agreed to kill him, the king, 


no Mordecai and His Cousin Esther 

but a man named Mordecai, whom he had 
never heard about before, had told the soldiers 
about it and so saved the king’s life. “ How 
has Mordecai been rewarded ?” said the king. 
“ Why,” they answered, “ nothing has been 
done for him so far.” “ Look out of the win- 
dow and see who is there,” said the king. It 
so happened that Haman was coming along 
the street to ask the king if he could hang 
Mordecai on the gallows he had built, and the 
servant answered, “ Here comes Haman.” 

The king said, “Tell him to come in.” 
When he came in the king said, “ Haman, 
what ought to be done for a man whom I wish 
to reward ? ” Haman was very conceited and 
thought of course the king referred to him so 
he answered, “ You ought to put some of 
your own beautiful clothes on him, and let 
him ride on your horse and put your crown 
on his head. Then let him ride through the 
city and let some one go ahead of him call- 
ing out, ‘ This is the man the king wishes to 
honour/ ” The king thought this would be a 
good way to do, so he said to Haman, “ All 
right ; take the clothes and the horse and 
dress up Mordecai, that Jew who sits there by 
the gate, and let him ride through the city as 
you suggest.” 

There was nothing for Haman to do but 


Mordecai and His Cousin Esther 1 1 1 


obey so he took the clothes and when Morde- 
cai was dressed like a king, and had a crown 
on his head, he put him on the king’s horse 
and he rode through the city with a man 
going ahead of him, calling out, “ This is the 
man the king wishes to honour.” You can 
imagine how Haman felt. He wouldn’t dare 
ask the king to let him hang Mordecai now. 
He rushed home, and said to his wife, “ O 
Zeresh, just see what has happened,” and he 
told her all about Mordecai, how the king 
had honoured him. While they were talking 
together a servant came and said, “ It’s time 
for you to go to Queen Esther’s dinner.” 

When they were seated the king said 
again, “ What is it, Esther ; what do you 
want me to do for you ? ” Esther saw that 
now was the time, so she said, “ O king, if 
you love me do not let me and my people be 
killed. We have been ordered to be killed ; 
Mordecai, who is my cousin and all the other 
Jews ; if we had only been sold as slaves I 
wouldn’t have said anything, but don’t let 
them kill us.” The king was greatly surprised. 
“Who would do such a thing? Show him to 
me.” Then Esther rose up and pointed to 
Haman and said, “ An enemy of yours, this 
wicked Haman here, he’s the man who has 
done this.” The king got up and went out- 


112 Mordecai and His Cousin Esther 

doors very angry, leaving Haman and the 
queen alone ; and while he was gone Haman 
implored the queen to save him from the 
angry king. When the king came back one 
of the servants told him about the gallows 
Haman had built and how he had expected 
to hang Mordecai on it. “ Hang Haman on 
his own gallows,” said the king. And they 
did it, and gave Haman’ s house to Esther, 
and made Mordecai ruler in Haman’ s place. 

The queen put Mordecai in the house 
in place of Haman. But those cruel letters 
about killing the Jews were still out, so the 
queen went once more to the king and said, 
“ O king, if you love me, stop the letters 
which Haman has sent out ; I can’t bear to 
see my people destroyed.” So the king 
called all the writers together again and said 
to Mordecai, “ Here is my ring ; write letters 
to the Jews and seal them with this ring. 
Anything that has my seal on it must be ob- 
served. I can’t change the letters which 
have been written, but find some way by 
which the Jews can save themselves.” Then 
Mordecai wrote something like this : “ On 

the thirteenth of the month your enemies are 
going to try to kill you ; but the king says 
you may meet together and get ready for 
them so that when they come you can defeat 


Mordecai and His Cousin Esther 113 

them.” So when the thirteenth came the 
Jews were ready, and their enemies couldn’t 
fight very hard for they had heard that the 
king had given the Jews permission to fight 
against them. The result was that instead 
of the Persians destroying the Jews, the Jews 
destroyed a great many of the Persians even 
in the king’s palace and saved themselves. 
This was on the thirteenth. They rested on 
the fourteenth and fifteenth, and made these 
holy days. Mordecai wrote down what had 
happened and told the Jews that as long as 
they lived they should remember those days 
and keep them holy, so that even now the 
Jews keep this feast, which they call the Feast 
of Purim. Each year Mordecai became 
greater and greater until he was the next 
man in the kingdom to the king himself. 


XIII 


How They Got Out of Egypt 

D O you remember how Joseph’s father 
and mother and all his brothers went 
to live with him in Egypt? Well, 
as long as Joseph lived and the king who 
loved Joseph was on the throne they got 
along very well. But by and by Joseph died 
and the good king died, and, of course, after 
a while Joseph’s family died too, but their 
grandchildren and great grandchildren lived 
and every year there were more and more of 
them. A time came when there were so 
many of these Hebrew people that the King 
of Egypt said, “We must do something to 
them, or it won’t be long before there will be 
so many of them that they will be stronger 
than our Egyptian people.” By this time a 
man had become king who had forgotten all 
about Joseph and the good he had done for 
Egypt, — a king was on the throne who hated 
the Hebrews. So he had them do all the 
hard work and had his men beat them as if 
they were nothing but lazy animals. There 
114 


How They Got Out of Egypt 115 

were great buildings to be built, so this king 
made these Hebrews dig the clay and make 
brick out of it, and then carry them to the 
place where the house was going up, and 
put the bricks and the mortar together ; he 
made them work on farms and plow and 
plant and dig. It was hard work, and when 
they didn’t work as fast as their Egyptian 
foremen thought they ought to they would 
whip them. 

While this was going on that little boy 
named Moses, who was found in the basket 
by the river, was living in the king’s palace 
growing up so that people thought he was an 
Egyptian. He was being taught everything 
that it was good for a boy to know. I don’t 
suppose King Pharaoh ever thought that he 
was training the man who was going to help the 
Hebrews so much. But that is just what he 
was doing. When Moses was grown to be 
a man, his people, the Hebrews, were suffer- 
ing the worst; but Moses knew nothing 
about it, for he had always lived in the king’s 
palace, just as if he were the king’s son. But 
one day he found out about it. He went out 
in the country where the Hebrews lived and 
saw them at work. While he was looking at 
them an Egyptian began to beat a Hebrew. 
Moses couldn’t stand this, so when he thought 


n6 How They Got Out of Egypt 

no one was looking he did a very wicked 
thing: he killed the Egyptian. But as al- 
ways happens he was found out, and had to 
run away from his splendid home ; because 
when Pharaoh heard that this Hebrew had 
really killed one of the Egyptians, he wanted 
to kill Moses. Moses had no other home to 
go to so he just wandered along the road 
till he was tired. At last he came to a well 
where he got a drink of water and sat down 
to rest. There he got acquainted with the 
children of a man named Reuel. When 
night came they asked him to stay at their 
house, so he went there and after a while he 
married one of these girls. 

One day some years after this he was out 
in the field tending the sheep when a strange 
thing happened : a bush standing there in 
the field seemed to be on fire, and yet it 
wasn’t burned up. Of course, he went over 
to see what it could be, and as he was look- 
ing at it his heavenly Father spoke to him 
and said : “ Moses, I’ve seen how the Egyp- 
tians are treating our people, and I want you 
to go to Pharaoh and tell him he must let the 
Hebrews go away from his land where they 
have been so badly treated.” Moses was 
frightened ; he had never seen or heard any- 
thing like that before and at first he didn’t 


How They Got Out of Egypt 1 1 7 

see how he, a poor shepherd, could go to 
that cruel king, and tell him what he must 
do. I think he remembered that wicked 
thing he had done in Egypt and was afraid 
to go back there. He didn’t know that all 
the men who wanted to kill him were now 
dead. So he began to make excuses. But 
God said, “You must go, Moses.” And 
then Moses said, “ But if I do go the king 
will say, ‘ How do I know that you are tell- 
ing the truth? You say your God has told 
you to say this to me. I don’t believe it; 
your God never said anything of the kind.’ ” 
Then God said, “ Moses, take that cane you 
have in your hand and throw it down on the 
ground.” As soon as Moses threw it down 
it turned into a wriggling snake that fright- 
ened him. But God said, “ Take hold of its 
tail,” and when Moses took hold of it, it was 
just a plain stick again. God told him some 
other things he could do and said, “ When 
you go to see the king show him what won- 
derful things you can do, and he will believe 
you.” But Moses didn’t want to go, so he 
began to make other excuses. This time he 
said, “ I’m not a good talker ; any one who 
speaks to a king ought to speak well.” God 
was very patient with Moses and said, “ I will 
help you ; you need not be afraid ; I will tell 


n8 How They Got Out of Egypt 

you what to say.” But once more Moses 
said, “ Can’t you send some one else ? ” I 
don’t wonder that the patient heavenly Father 
became angry at him now, for you would 
have thought that Moses would have been 
proud to go on an errand for the God of 
heaven and earth. Then God said, “You 
have a brother, a little older than you, named 
Aaron ; he can speak well ; I will send him 
with you to talk to Pharaoh.” 

All this time the poor Hebrews back in 
Egypt had been praying to God asking Him 
to help them ; and it was because God heard 
their prayers, and wanted to help them, that 
He had arranged to send Moses to bring them 
out of Egypt. 

So Moses got his family together and 
moved back to Egypt. Aaron, his brother 
who was still living in Egypt, came out to 
meet him and was delighted when he saw 
him. Don’t you wish you could have been 
there and heard Moses telling Aaron what God 
had said ; and could have seen him showing 
Aaron how his cane would turn into a snake ? 
I would. Then they called together the He- 
brews, both men and women, and told them 
about it and showed them the wonderful 
things Moses could do. The people were so 
glad that God had heard their prayers that 


How They Got Out of Egypt 119 

they bowed their heads right there and 
thanked Him. 

After a while Moses and Aaron went to 
the palace and asked if they could see the 
king. When they were showed into the 
room where the king was, Aaron said, “ Our 
God says you must let His people go to 
hold a feast to worship Him.” But the king 
answered, “ I don’t know your God, and I 
am not going to let the Hebrews go. Why 
do you come here ? ” And then he turned to 
one of his men, and said, “ This comes from 
those idle people ; they haven’t enough to do, 
so they want to go out into the country on a 
holiday. Make them work harder.” 

So the men in charge made them work 
harder and harder until the poor people 
couldn’t stand it any longer, and they sent 
some of the men to tell Pharaoh about it. 
But he only said to them, “ You are idle ; 
you don’t work enough ; go back to your 
work.” When Moses told his heavenly 
Father about it God said, “You will soon 
see what I will do to Pharaoh. He refuses 
to let My people go, does he ? Pretty soon 
he will want them to go worse than he now 
wants them to stay. You go to Pharaoh 
again, and tell him he must let the people go 
away from this land.” But it was no use; 


1 20 How They Got Out of Egypt 

Pharaoh still said, “I won’t let them go,” 
although Aaron threw down the stick and 
made it turn into a snake. 

The next day Moses went out and stood 
by the river, and when he saw Pharaoh 
coming down he said, “You must let our 
people go ; if you don’t I will turn all the 
water in Egypt into blood.” And still 
Pharaoh refused ; so Moses stretched out his 
wonderful cane over the river, and wher- 
ever there was water, in the river and in the 
kettles in the houses and in the fish ponds, 
everywhere, now instead of water, for a 
whole week, it was blood. The fish died, 
and the people could find no water to drink. 

At the end of the week Moses came and 
said, “ If you don’t let our people go I 
will cover the land with frogs.” Pharaoh 
didn’t believe he could do this so he paid 
no attention to it, but once more the wonder- 
ful cane was held out, and in a moment 
everywhere you could see frogs, frogs, frogs. 
I suppose when Pharaoh turned back the 
covers to go to bed he would find frogs ; 
when he got up in the morning there would 
be frogs in his bedroom ; when he went to 
breakfast there they were on the table, frogs 
everywhere. He couldn’t stand it, so he 
called for Moses and said, “ If you will drive 


How They Got Out of Egypt 121 

these frogs away I’ll let the people go.” But 
when Moses made the frogs go away Pharaoh 
changed his mind and wouldn’t let them go. 
After that Moses kept trying his best to get 
Pharaoh to let the people go, and Pharaoh 
would promise and then break his promise. 
Moses made disgusting lice come upon all 
the men and animals ; he brought great 
swarms of flies into every part of Egypt ; he 
made horrible sores come upon the Egyptian 
horses and upon the Egyptians themselves 
and upon their cows and sheep and camels ; 
each time the king said he would let the peo- 
ple go if Moses would take these horrible 
things away from him, but he didn’t. Then 
Moses tried again. God said to him, “ Go to 
see Pharaoh once more ; go early in the 
morning ; tell him he must let the people go.” 
Still he refused and Moses stretched out his 
hand, as God told him to do, towards the 
heaven and a great thunder-storm with hail 
and lightning came upon the earth ; it was 
all over the land of Egypt except in the place 
where the Hebrews lived. There had never 
been anything like it before. It beat down 
and destroyed nearly all the vegetables ; it 
killed the cattle and the people ; everything 
and everybody outdoors was either struck 
by lightning or beaten to death by the rain 


122 How They Got Out of Egypt 

and hail. This was the worst so far, and as 
the storm kept up Pharaoh sent as fast as 
he could for Moses and said : “I have done 
wrong, I should have kept my word ; HI let 
the people go now ; only stop this awful 
storm before everything is destroyed and we 
are all killed.” Again Moses did what 
Pharaoh asked, but as soon as he was out of 
his misery he changed his mind again and 
wouldn’t let the people go after all. Then 
Moses made locusts, or grasshoppers, swarm 
all over the country and they ate up every- 
thing that had escaped the hail ; he made it 
dark for three whole days, except in that 
part of the country where the Hebrews lived, 
there it was light. But still Pharaoh’s heart 
was hard and he wouldn’t let the people go. 

Now came the last and the worst. God 
told Moses that this time Pharaoh would 
surely let them go. ‘‘Tell each of the He- 
brew families,” God said to Moses, “ to kill a 
lamb and sprinkle some of the blood on the 
outside of their house. About midnight I 
will go through Egypt and in each house 
where I do not see blood I will cause the old- 
est child to die.” It was a busy night for 
the Hebrews. In each home the lamb was 
killed and on the outside of each house the 
blood was sprinkled. I don’t imagine that 


How They Got Out of Egypt 123 

they slept much that night. At midnight the 
death angel went over Egypt and while the 
Egyptians were sleeping, the awful work was 
done. When they awoke in the morning 
every house, from the king’s palace down to 
the tiniest cottage, was filled with sorrow, for 
in each one the eldest son or the eldest 
daughter lay dead. I don’t wonder that the 
king sent for Moses in a great hurry, even 
before it was daylight, and said, “ Go, go ; 
don’t stay here any longer ; get your people 
together and go away as fast as you can be- 
fore we are all dead.” So the Israelites got 
all their things together, including their cat- 
tle and their sheep, and at last really started 
to march away from the land where they had 
suffered so much. 


XIV 


How They Got Across the Sea 

W E have read how God made Pha- 
raoh, the king of Egypt, let the 
Israelites go away from Egypt, 
where they had been so badly treated. Now 
we come to the time when they have started for 
their new home. I couldn’t begin to tell you 
how many of them there were, thousands and 
thousands and still more thousands. There 
were old grandfathers and grandmothers, and 
fathers and mothers, and boys and girls of all 
ages and sizes. Besides all the people, they 
had with them great herds of cattle and 
flocks of sheep, for you remember they were 
shepherds. Moses was their leader, going 
along with them like the general of an army. 
In order to show them which way to go, God 
made a great white cloud move along in front 
of them in the daytime and at night it became 
like a great ball of fire. 

When the cloud moved they marched for- 
ward, and when it stopped they stayed still 
until it began to move again. Of course 
124 


How They Got Across the Sea 125 

they would have to live in tents just as sol- 
diers do when they are in the field. 

You remember how many times Pharaoh 
promised to let the people go and how he 
would always change his mind ; it was so 
this time. The people hadn’t been gone very 
long before the king said, “ Why did we let 
them go ? We have made a mistake. Har- 
ness the horses to the chariots ; call the sol- 
diers ; run after them and bring them back 
to Egypt to work for us.” 

By this time the Israelites had come to a 
place where they didn’t know what to do : on 
one side was a mountain ; on the other side 
was another mountain and in front of them 
was the Red Sea. When they looked be- 
hind them they saw Pharaoh’s army with 
horses and chariots. The cowards among 
them were frightened, and they were angry 
with Moses their leader. It seems as if they 
had entirely forgotten what God had done 
for them. Some of them even went up to 
Moses and said, “ Did you bring us out here 
in the wilderness to die ? Didn’t we tell you 
when we were in Egypt that we would rather 
stay there and live, even if we were slaves, 
than come out here and die ? ” 

Poor Moses, he was doing the best he 
could ; but he must have been greatly pro- 


126 How They Got Across the Sea 

yoked by these people for whom he had done 
so much. However, he said to them, “ Don’t 
you be afraid. You see those Egyptians 
back there ? You will never see them again.” 
Then Moses prayed to God and God said, 
“ Tell the people to go ahead. Take your 
cane that turns into a snake, hold it out over 
the sea and the sea will open and make a 
path on which the people can walk over 
without even getting their feet wet. The 
Egyptians will try to follow you, but I will 
show them that I am taking care of My 
people.” 

When that day ended and night came God 
took the cloud from in front of the Israelites 
and put it behind them ; not only did He do 
this but He made the cloud bright and light 
on the side towards the Israelites, but black 
and dark on the other side towards the 
Egyptians, so that the Israelites were in the 
light but the Egyptians had only darkness. 
Then Moses went to the shore of the sea and 
held out his cane, as God had told him to do. 
When he did that God made a wind blow 
against the waters of the sea so hard that the 
water couldn’t flow against it, and this left 
part of the bottom of the sea without any 
water. On this bare place the Israelites 
walked over to the other side just as if they 


How They Got Across the Sea 127 

had been on dry land instead of in the mid- 
dle of the sea. 

The Egyptians thought of course they 
could go wherever the Israelites did, so they 
whipped up their horses and tried to drive 
them right through the sea. They had a 
good deal of trouble with their chariots that 
night ; they didn’t seem to run very well, 
and some of the soldiers wanted to turn back. 
They felt that some unseen power was help- 
ing the Israelites. But they didn’t go back ; 
they kept on, and when they got out in the 
middle of the sea, God said to Moses, “ Hold 
out your cane over the sea again.” 

When he did this the water rushed back 
where it belonged and all the soldiers and 
horses were covered up and drowned ; not 
one escaped. After a while when the Is- 
raelites looked along the shore of the sea 
there they saw hundreds and hundreds of 
dead Egyptian soldiers. This made the 
Israelites very happy, to see so many of 
their cruel enemies destroyed, so to show 
their happiness they sang a song which 
Moses had written for them beginning : 

“ I will sing unto the Lord, 

For He hath triumphed gloriously ; 

The horse and his rider hath He thrown 
into the sea.” 


l 28 How They Got Across the Sea 

For a good while after this they were very 
obedient to Moses, and looked upon him as 
their best friend. And now that they were 
safely across the sea, they began the long* 
long journey to their new home. 


XV 


Through the Roof to the Doctor 

I N a certain house in the city of Caper- 
naum there is a sick man. For a long 
time he hasn’t been able to get out of 
bed. His friends come to see him, and like 
those who come to see sick people nearly 
every one of them tells him what he ought 
to do in order to get well. One man comes 
in and says, “I’m sorry, Stephen; I wish I 
could do something for you, but I don’t see 
what’s to be done.” The next day another 
comes with a glass of jelly and says, 
'‘Stephen, this may taste good to you; I 
wish I could tell you some way to get on 
your feet again.” At another time a friend 
comes and tells about some medicine and 
says, “ My friend John has been sick and he 
took some of this medicine and it helped him ; 
you ought to get some of that, Stephen.” 

Then one day a friend comes in and says, 
“ O Stephen, over on the west side of town 
there’s a wonderful man. They call him 
Jesus. He is curing all kinds of sick people. 
129 


130 Through the Roof to the Doctor 

He could cure you, I’m sure.” And then 
they would both be so sorry that Stephen 
was so sick he couldn’t go to that great phy- 
sician. 

But one day a real friend comes in. I 
don’t know his name. It may have been 
Peter. He is all excitement. “ Stephen,” 
he says, “I have just been over on the west 
side of the town. There I saw a man named 
Jesus who is doing wonderful things. I saw 
a man who was blind go up to Him and 
when he came away he could see. A friend 
of mine who had a lame leg had Him touch 
it and his lameness was all gone. You must 
go to Him and be cured.” Poor Stephen, 
everybody was telling him what he ought to 
do and he was getting tired of hearing them. 

So he said, rather crossly, ‘‘Don’t talk 
that way, Peter ; you know I can’t stand on 
my feet, let alone walk away over to the 
west side. How can I go to this great phy- 
sician ? ” Peter seemed to be lost in thought, 
then he jumps up without saying a word and 
rushes out into the street. There he meets 
three friends who happen to be going along, 
and he tells them as quickly as he can about 
poor, helpless Stephen and the wonderful 
physician he had seen. Then he says, 
“ There’s only one thing to do. There are 


Through the Roof to the Doctor 131 

four of us here ; let us each take one corner 
of Stephen’s bed and carry him to Jesus to 
be cured.” One of them smiles and says, 
“ How would it look to be carrying a sick 
man on his bed through the street ? ” But 
Peter says, “ Never mind how it would look, 
come along.” So up-stairs they go, led by 
Peter into Stephen’s room. They tell him 
what they are going to do and Stephen him- 
self does not like it very much, but finally he 
consents, so off they go. It is rather awk- 
ward, for the streets are narrow and crowded, 
and it’s a curious sight, a sick man being 
carried through the streets on his bed. But 
Peter keeps cheering them, telling about the 
wonderful man they are going to see. 

All this time Jesus had been in the house 
where Peter had seen Him, and a big crowd 
had been drawn together to hear Him speak 
and to see His miracles. In the crowd were 
a good many of the distinguished men of 
that city, and others who had come a long 
distance to hear Him, so that when Peter 
and his friends turn the corner and see the 
house where Jesus is the street is black with 
people. They march right up to the crowd 
and Stephen’s enthusiastic friends say, “ If 
you please, let us come in with this sick 
man. We want to get him near Jesus to be 


132 Through the Roof to the Doctor 

cured.” Well, you know how it is with 
crowds. The man Peter spoke to turned his 
head and said, “ Don’t bother me. Don’t 
you see that I am trying to get in there my- 
self? I’ve been here for two hours, and I’m 
not going to give up my place to you.” 
Peter goes round to another place, but it’s 
just the same ; no one will make room. 

And then one of the helpers says, “ I told 
you so ; it was foolish to bring this sick man 
into this crowd.” But Peter is a real friend. 
He just says to his other friends, “ Put him 
down a minute. I’ll soon be back,” and away 
he runs, much to their surprise. By and by 
he came back and one of them says, “ What’s 
that he’s got on his arm ? Is that a rope ? ” 
It was sure enough. “What’s it for?” asks 
the man at one corner of the bed. “You’ll 
soon see,” Peter answers. “Come along. 
Bring Stephen up here,” and he points to the 
stairway running up the outside of the house 
to the roof. “ Oh,” says another of the men, 
“ this is nonsense,” and even Stephen thinks 
they would better give it up and go home. 
“No,” says Peter, “come along; bring him 
up.” 

So up they go, while the crowds look at 
them wondering what they are trying to do 
with the poor fellow on the bed. Peter cuts 


Through the Roof to the Doctor 133 

the rope into four pieces and ties one piece 
to each corner of the bed, while his friends 
wonder whether he has gone crazy. “ Tear 
up the roof,” he says to the men. They don’t 
like to destroy property that way, but they 
see that Peter is in earnest and go at it. 
Soon there is a hole big enough to let the 
bed through, and they take hold of the ropes 
and lower Stephen down right in front of 
Jesus, to the astonishment of everybody. 

Jesus looks at Stephen, He looks up at 
those friends who had done so much for him, 
speaks to him and says, “Your sins are for- 
given ; roll up your bed and go home.” 
What a time those four men and Stephen 
must have had when they got back to 
Stephen’s house, with Stephen a well man ! 


XVI 


How Elijah Helped a Poor 
Woman 

O NE of God’s servants named Elijah 
once told a wicked king, named 
Ahab, that there would be no rain 
nor dew for years. Of course this meant 
that everything would dry up, and nothing 
would grow. Then for three whole years 
there was no rain. Many people died for 
they couldn’t get anything to eat. Even the 
king was greatly worried. 

This good man Elijah might have died, 
too, only God took care of him. God told 
him to go out in the country and live by a 
brook that ran down to the river, so that he 
might have water to drink, and God also 
told the ravens, those big black birds, like 
crows, to bring him food each morning and 
each evening. But the brook could not last 
long without rain and by and by it dried up, 
and then God said to Elijah, “You go into 
the city ; I have asked a woman who lives 
there by herself, with her only son, to take 
*34 


How Elijah Helped a Poor Woman 135 

care of you.” Of course Elijah obeyed, and 
as soon as he came to the city gate he found 
this woman in the street picking up some 
pieces of wood. He called to her and said, 
“Won’t you bring me a drink of water?” 

She seems to have been a kind woman, for 
she started right off to get the water. And 
as she was going Elijah called to her, and 
said, “ When you come back with the water, 
I wish you would bring me a piece of bread, 
too.” Then she felt very badly for she was 
very poor, so she said, “ I don’t know what 
to do : I haven’t any bread in the house. 
You know there has been no rain for a long 
time and everything has dried up, so we 
have no flour. I have just a little meal and 
some oil, and I came out here to get some 
sticks of wood to build a fire, then I was go- 
ing to mix the oil and meal together and 
bake a little bread for my son and myself. 
That would be our last meal ; everything we 
have would be gone when we had eaten this 
and then — well, I suppose we would just die 
of hunger.” But Elijah said to her, “ Don’t 
you be afraid. Go ahead and build your fire 
and bake your bread. But first bring me a 
piece and then you and your son eat some, 
for God has told me that your meal and oil 
will last as long as the dry season, and you 


136 How Elijah Helped a Poor Woman 

will always have something to eat” So she 
hurried away and made the bread. She gave 
Elijah some and then ate some herself and all 
through that dry time whenever she went to 
the barrel where she kept her meal, sure 
enough, there was some still there, and 
whenever she took up the oil bottle to pour 
out some oil, the oil was there too ; neither 
the oil nor the meal even came to an end as 
long as she needed them. 


XVII 


How the Baby Moses Was Saved 

OU will remember that at the time of 



the famine Jacob and his family, who 


were Hebrews, went to Egypt to live, 
where one of the sons, Joseph, had stored up 
a lot of food. These Hebrews lived there in 
Egypt a long, long time, and of course each 
year there were more and more of them. So 
that at last the king said : “I’m afraid that 
by and by there will be more Hebrews in this 
land of ours than there are Egyptians. I 
shouldn’t like that, for this is our country. 
We will make them work hard so that maybe 
a lot of them will die. It might so happen 
that if we had a war these Hebrews would 
join with our enemies and fight against us.” 
I think the king said this because he knew 
that the Egyptians hadn’t been very good to 
the Hebrews. 

They had really been very bad to them : 
they had made slaves of the Hebrews and 
made them do all the hard work. But the 
hard work didn’t seem to hurt them much, 


138 How the Baby Moses Was Saved 

for every year there were more and more 
Hebrews. At last the king said, “Fll tell 
you what we’ll do : whenever a boy is born 
in a Hebrew home we’ll drown him ; we’ll 
throw him into the Nile.” Many and many 
a time there was a sad home in Egypt. A 
little boy would be born and all the other 
children would be so happy, but the poor 
mother would be worried. She loved the 
little fellow so much, but by and by one of 
the king’s soldiers would come to the house 
and take the sweet little baby away, and he 
wouldn’t come back, for the Hebrews were 
only slaves to the Egyptians. And so it 
went on. 

One day one of these baby boys was born 
in the home of a slave, and he was such a 
splendid baby his mother made up her mind 
to do everything she could to keep him away 
from the king’s soldiers ; for even if she was 
a slave she loved her own baby boy just as 
much as any mother could. So what did 
she do but hide the baby ! This she could 
do pretty well while he was real little, for 
then he would be asleep most of the time, 
and it wouldn’t be very hard to keep him 
still. 

But when he was about three months old 
he had grown quite strong and sometimes 


How the Baby Moses Was Saved 139 

he would cry pretty loud. This made his 
mother afraid, for a soldier might be going 
past the house just at the time when this 
baby had one of his fits of crying. Then she 
knew what would happen : the soldier would 
come in and take the dear baby away from 
her. She couldn’t bear to think of such a 
thing, but she knew she couldn’t keep him 
in the house much longer. I suppose the 
king’s soldiers would be watching the slave’s 
houses pretty nearly all the time, so that they 
would know whenever a baby came to any 
of them. This made his mother decide to 
hide her baby in some place where the sol- 
diers wouldn’t be looking for babies. 

The baby had one little sister, named 
Miriam, and I am sure the poor mother 
would say to Miriam, “ O Miriam, what shall 
we do ; I’m so afraid the soldiers will find 
out that your little baby brother is here. We 
must hide him somewhere away from our 
house, and perhaps we could take turns tak- 
ing care of him. I could watch him a while 
and you could watch a while and so he would 
be safe.” So after thinking of all sorts of 
places Miriam said, “ Down by the banks of 
the Nile the grasses grow very tall ; they are 
taller than you or I. Couldn’t we make 
something to hold little brother and hide 


140 How the Baby Moses Was Saved 

him in these grasses? The soldiers would 
never expect to find a baby there.” This 
was the best they could think of, so Miriam 
and her mother went to work and made a 
little basket, something like a cradle, and 
lined it inside with soft wool from their sheep, 
and stopped up all the cracks so that no 
water could get into it. Then they put the 
dear baby into it and after it was dark took 
him down by the riverside and hid the basket 
and baby in the high grass. 

How anxious they must have been as they 
watched it! What a time they must have 
had when they wanted to feed him, for fear 
he would make a noise loud enough to at- 
tract a soldier’s attention. But everything 
went along all right, with first his mother 
and then Miriam and maybe his father, now 
and then, watching near by. 

Up in the palace lived the king who had 
given this cruel order about drowning the 
Hebrew babies. I don’t know how many 
children he had, but he had at least one 
daughter and she, having a king for a father, 
was a princess. Down by the river was a 
place where the king’s children used to go 
in swimming, and it happened to be right 
near the place where the baby boy was hid- 
den. And one day when the princess came 


How the Baby Moses Was Saved 141 

down for her bath, she heard a strange noise 
over in the grass. She looked but she 
couldn’t see anything. Pretty soon she 
heard it again, and so she said to one of her 
servants, “ That’s queer, I thought I heard a 
baby cry over there in the grass ; I wish 
you’d go over there and see what it is. 
That would be a funny place for a baby to 
be.” So the servant went ; and sure enough 
it was the cry of a baby and there was the 
little basket with the baby inside. 

All this time Miriam was standing where 
she could see what was going on and her 
heart was beating so fast she thought it 
would break through. They brought the 
basket to the princess and she was so sur- 
prised ; she looked at the nice basket, and 
opened the cover and the little fellow inside 
was frightened and cried. When the princess 
saw the baby she exclaimed, “ What a beauti- 
ful child ; he belongs to one of those Hebrew 
slaves, and my father said that all their boy 
babies should be thrown into the Nile. But 
this one won’t be ; he is so beautiful, he is 
going to be mine,” and being a princess of 
course she had her own way. 

Something made Miriam understand that 
the princess liked the baby so she went up 
to her and said, “ Wouldn’t you like me to 


142 How the Baby Moses Was Saved 

get you a Hebrew nurse for this Hebrew 
baby?” “ Why, yes,” the princess said, “I 
am going to have this little boy for my own ; 
he needs a nurse, so run and find one for me 
if you can.” Do you suppose Miriam ran 
home as fast as she could ? I do. She would 
come into her mother’s house all out of breath 
and say, “ Oh, mother, the princess has found 
little brother down by the river and wants a 
nurse for him. She was going in bathing and 
just then he cried, and when she heard him 
she took the basket and opened it, and now 
she says she is going to keep him for her 
own child. I told her I could get a nurse 
for him and so she said I might do so. You 
come and we will tell the princess that you’ll 
be his nurse, and so we will be able to keep 
our dear little baby in the house with us after 
all.” 

In didn’t take Miriam and her mother long 
to get back to the place where the princess 
stood admiring the beautiful baby and very 
soon the princess said to the baby’s own 
mother, although she didn’t know it was his 
mother, “ Take this baby home ; be his nurse ; 
take good care of him and I’ll pay you.” 
So Miriam and her mother went back home 
carrying the baby and two happier people 
you never saw. 


How the Baby Moses Was Saved 143 

By and by when the princess was wonder- 
ing what to call the baby she remembered 
that the word “Moses” means “taken out of 
the water,” so as he was taken out of the 
water she named him Moses. 


XVIII 


Naaman, the Leper 

O NE of the countries in which the peo- 
ple of Israel lived long ago was 
called Samaria. A great many peo- 
ple lived in that country and among them 
lived a wonderful man whose name was 
Elisha. He could do things nobody else 
could do. 

One time a poor woman in Samaria, whose 
husband had died, owed a lot of money which 
she couldn’t pay, and the man she owed it to 
came to her house and said he would take 
her two children and sell them as slaves to 
pay the debt. This made the poor woman 
feel very badly indeed, and so she went to 
this wonderful man Elisha to see if he could 
help her. When she told him her story, he 
asked her some questions about what she had 
in the house, and found out that all she had 
was a can of oil. “ Go home,” Elisha said to 
her, “ borrow all the pots and kettles you can 
from your neighbours and pour the oil into 
144 


Naaman, the Leper 145 

them." She did what Elisha told her to do 
and you should have seen how surprised she 
was when the oil kept right on coming out 
of the can long after she thought it was 
empty. She kept calling to one of her boys 
to bring more kettles, but at last he had to 
say there were no more : everything they had 
was full of oil. When she told Elisha what 
had happened he just said, “Sell the oil and 
pay your debt.” She did so and saved her 
children. 

There was a certain road Elisha used to 
walk on a great deal and a woman who very 
often saw him going along said to her hus- 
band, “That is a good man we see going 
past here so often ; let’s get a room ready 
for him in our house so that he can stay with 
us when he wants to.” This was the way 
Elisha became acquainted with the woman, 
and he often used to stay in the little room she 
fixed up for him. But one day her only little 
boy went out in the field to see his father 
who was working there, and was sunstruck 
and died. The poor mother didn’t know 
what to do, but she thought at once of the 
good man who had stayed with them, and 
who no doubt had often played with her little 
boy, so she sent for Elisha. When he got 
there he went into his own room where the 


146 Naaman, the Leper 

poor mother had laid the little boy and by 
and by he came out leading the boy by the 
hand : he had made him alive again. 

And this was the way Elisha lived, always 
doing such wonderful things. There was one 
family in Samaria in which there was a little 
girl who used to see him do some of these 
things, and in the evening as they sat at 
home she would hear her folks talking about 
what Elisha had been doing, and how it was 
his God who helped him do all these things. 

There was another country not so very far 
away from Samaria called Syria, and the 
people who lived there were not very friendly 
to the people in Samaria. Every once in a 
while a great company of the Syrian soldiers 
would come marching into Samaria and be- 
fore the poor Israelites could do anything, 
the Syrians would take a lot of them prison- 
ers, men, women and children, and carry 
them away to make slaves of them in Damas- 
cus or one of their great cities. 

One time when the Syrian soldiers came 
to Samaria they captured this lovely little 
girl, who knew about Elisha, and carried her 
away. She was so bright and sweet that 
when the wife of Naaman, one of the great 
captains in the Syrian army, wanted a maid 
this little slave girl was given to her and she 


Naaman, the Leper 147 

became her lady’s maid. But the family of 
Naaman couldn’t be happy, because he had 
a terrible disease called leprosy, which no- 
body in Syria could cure, and it kept getting 
worse and worse. This little girl would 
often see him trying to fix up his poor sore 
hands and she felt very sorry for him, al- 
though it was his soldiers who had made 
her a slave. 

One day while she was talking to Naa- 
man’s wife she said, “There’s a wonderful 
man named Elisha over in my country. He 
can even make dead people come to life 
and I am sure he could cure your husband 
if he would let him. I wish he’d go and 
see him.” Then some one went to Naaman 
and said, “ There’s a little Israelite girl who 
waits on your wife ; she says there is a 
wonderful man named Elisha in her country 
who she thinks can cure leprosy ; why don’t 
you go to him?” Of course, Naaman 
couldn’t go out of the country without ask- 
ing his master, the king, so he went to the 
king and said, “ A little girl whom we car- 
ried away from Samaria, and who waits on 
my wife, says that there is a man over in 
her country who can cure leprosy. I don’t 
like to go away over there ; we ought to 
have better doctors than they, but nobody 


148 Naaman, the Leper 

seems to be able to help me here, and I’d 
like to try what they can do in Samaria.” 
“ All right,” the king said, “ I’ll give you a 
letter of introduction to the king of Israel, 
who lives in Samaria.” 

You see, he thought that when any great 
thing was to be done, it would have to be 
done by the king. So he sat down and 
wrote to the king of Israel. “ This will in- 
troduce you to my servant Naaman. I 
have sent him to you that he might be 
healed of his disease; he has leprosy.” 
Then Naaman got together a great company 
of his servants, for he was a great man in 
Syria ; he had been a successful general in 
their wars, and the people thought a great 
deal of him. They had horses and chariots, 
and they took all sorts of presents made of 
gold and silver, and beautiful clothes, which 
they were going to give to the king of 
Israel. 

So they started out, Naaman and his sol- 
diers and servants in beautiful chariots, and 
by and by they reached Samaria. A servant 
told the king of Israel that Naaman from 
Damascus in Syria wanted to see him, and 
when the proper time came Naaman was 
shown in where the king was sitting. He 
handed up the letter from the king of Syria 


H9 


Naaman, the Leper 

which he was carrying, and the king read : 
“ This will introduce to you my servant Naa- 
man. I have sent him to you so that you 
might heal his disease ; he has the leprosy.” 
When the king read that he was greatly 
worried and said, “ Does this man think I 
am God ? Here’s a man with an incurable 
disease, leprosy ; does he think I can cure 
him ? He is trying to pick a quarrel with 
me, that’s what he is doing.” And there 
was great sadness in the palace for they 
knew what it meant to have to fight the 
Syrians. But it wasn’t long before Elisha 
heard what had happened up at the palace, 
and he sent to the king and said, “ Don’t be 
worried ; let Naaman come to me and he 
will find out that some one in Israel can do 
something for him.” 

So they sent word to Naaman that he had 
made a mistake ; he must go to Elisha ; 
he was the one who would help him. I 
imagine Naaman thought it was very queer 
that the king should treat him that way, but 
anyhow, he started off and pretty soon he 
with his horses and chariots and servants 
stood at the door of Elisha’s house. He 
probably told some one to go in and tell 
Elisha that he, Naaman, the great captain 
from Syria, wanted to see him, and he 


150 Naaman, the Leper 

thought that Elisha would come out-of- 
doors where he was and pray to God and 
wave his hand over the place where the 
leprosy showed and cure him. But Elisha 
did no such thing : he didn’t care how great 
a man Naaman was ; he didn’t even come 
out. He called some one into the house and 
said, “You go out and say to Naaman, ‘ Go 
and wash in the river Jordan seven times 
and your flesh will come again, and you will 
be clean.’ ” 

When this man came out and told this to 
Naaman he was very angry. “ What,” he 
said, “ go wash in that dirty old Jordan to 
get clean ! Are not our rivers, Abanah and 
Pharpar, better than all the rivers over here ? 
Can’t I wash in them and get clean ? ” And 
he turned away from Elisha’s door just as 
mad as he could be. He couldn’t understand 
how such a simple thing as washing in a river 
could cure a disease which all the doctors 
in his country had found incurable. 

But one of his servants stepped up to him 
and said, “ My father,” not because Naaman 
was really his father, but because he wanted 
to be polite, “ my father, if the man had told 
you to do some hard thing in order to cure 
the leprosy you would have done it, wouldn’t 
you ? Why not do it then, when he tells you 


Naaman, the Leper 151 

to do such a simple thing as washing in the 
river ? ” 

In the meantime Naaman had cooled off, 
as we say, and I suppose he said to himself, 
“Well, it can’t do any harm, though it’s 
foolish enough ; I’ll try it.” So down he 
went to the river, he and his servants and 
soldiers, and found a good place and dipped 
himself in the river one, two, three, four, five, 
six, seven times, just as Elisha had told him 
to do, and you can imagine how delighted 
he must have been when after the seventh 
dip he looked at his hands, where the awful 
sores had been, and they were all well and 
his skin looked as soft and sweet and clean 
as that of a little baby. 

Naaman rushed back to Elisha’s house and 
said, “Now I know that there is no God, 
except in your country ; let me give you a 
present in return for what you have done for 
me.” But although Naaman urged him to 
take the present, Elisha said he wouldn’t 
take a thing. Then Naaman said, “ At any 
rate give me a few baskets full of your ground 
to carry back with me, for I won’t worship 
any God hereafter but the God of your land. 
Sometimes, though, when my master, the 
king of Syria, goes into the temple to wor- 
ship his God, I will have to appear to worship 


152 Naaman, the Leper 

with him, but I hope I will be pardoned for 
doing so.” Then they dug up some of the 
dirt of Samaria and gave it to Naaman, and 
he carried it back home to Syria rejoicing, a 
well man. 


XIX 


Samson, the Strong Man 

ONG, long ago, a man named Ma- 



noah and his wife lived in a place 


— * called Zorah. This was in Judah and 
they were Israelites, people who worshipped 
the true God. Their Bible was part of what 
we now call the Old Testament, and it told 
them that they mustn’t go with people who 
were not Israelites. They had been unfortu- 
nate though, and just now their enemies, the 
Philistines who had conquered them, were 
their rulers. 

These two people, Manoah and his wife, 
were very sorry they had no children in their 
home, for in those days a home without chil- 
dren was thought to be a very poor place. 
I suppose they had often asked God to give 
them a boy baby and one day God sent an 
angel to tell Manoah’s wife that a baby boy 
was coming to their house. She could hardly 
believe it was true for she did want a little 
boy so much, so she rushed off to find Ma- 
noah who was out in the field and said, 


154 Samson, the Strong Man 

14 What do you think? We are going to have 
a baby boy in our home.” Then Manoah 
wanted to see the angel too, so he prayed to 
God and said, “ O Lord, let the angel come 
again and tell us how to take care of this 
baby boy.” God heard his prayer, for Ma- 
noah was a good man, and one day He sent 
the angel again to the place where they 
lived. 

But somehow Manoah wasn’t in the field 
when the angel came, but his wife was ; so 
she ran as fast as she could and said, “O 
Manoah, come, come, here’s the angel who 
told me about the baby the other day ; come 
and talk to him.” You can imagine how he 
would run. As soon as he was near enough 
he spoke to the angel and said, “Tell us 
what kind of a child this baby will be, and 
what he will do.” Then the angel told 
them how this boy was to be a strong, pure 
boy, and was to be a real servant of God. 
“You must never cut his hair,” the angel 
said. All this pleased the father and the 
mother very much though the part about the 
hair must have seemed strange, and they 
wanted to do something for the angel to 
show him how much they appreciated what 
he had told them, but the angel said, “ No, 
there is nothing you can do for me,” and 


Samson, the Strong Man 155 

he went back to heaven. Sure enough this 
little baby boy came to their home and they 
called him Samson, a name we all remember. 

We don’t know very much about this boy, 
but we remember how the angel told his 
mother that they should never cut his hair — 
why this was we shall see after a while — so I 
suppose Samson went around with his hair 
longer than other boys. But all the time his 
heavenly Father was taking care of him while 
he was growing up, getting stronger and 
stronger every day. 

He seems to have been somewhat spoiled, 
as only sons are apt to be, and so when he 
grew up to be a young man he wanted to 
have his own way a good deal. This was 
what made him marry a woman who was a 
Philistine, although his father and mother 
wanted him to marry one of his own people, 
as their Bible said they should. It was while 
he was going to see this young woman one 
day, that he met a lion in the road, and 
killed him with his bare hands, he had grown 
so strong. 

One day he got very angry at his wife’s 
people, the Philistines, and set fire to their 
corn and burned it. Then he ran away and 
hid himself. Of course this made them very 
angry so they called out a great lot of their 


156 Samson, the Strong Man 

soldiers, and went up where they thought 
Samson was. When they got hold of him 
they tied him with a rope. They thought it 
would be easy enough to destroy him now ; 
but his great strength began to show itself 
and he broke the ropes and grabbed up the 
first thing he found which was a big bone 
lying on the ground, and began to use it as 
a club until he had killed a great many of 
his enemies ; and the others ran away. But 
they were always trying to get hold of him ; 
they never forgot how he had burned up 
their corn. One time they heard that he was 
in a city called Gaza, so they went there. 
While they waited outside the gate for morn- 
ing to come so that they could see what they 
were doing Samson got up, took the big 
gates right off their hinges and put them on 
his back and carried them up to the top of 
the mountain, just to show them what he 
could do when he wanted to. 

After a while he fell in love with a woman 
named Delilah, and these Philistines who 
wanted to kill him went to her and said, 
“ Can’t you find out what makes him so 
strong ? If you can and will tell us we will 
give you a lot of money.” So Delilah said 
to him, “ Samson, if any one wanted to hurt 
you how could they tie you?” And Sam- 


Samson, the Strong Man 157 

son told her that if they should bind him 
with seven green twigs he would be as weak 
as other men. Then they thought they had 
him. They gave the seven green twigs to 
Delilah and she tied them around Samson, 
and called out, “The Philistines are after 
you,’’ but he just stretched himself and the 
twigs broke in pieces. 

Then Delilah said, “ Samson, you did not 
tell me the truth ; really, tell me how would 
any one tie you if he wanted to hurt you ? ” 
and Samson told her that if he should be 
bound with a piece of brand new rope he 
would be no stronger than any other man. 
So she got a piece of new rope and tied him 
with it, but when she called out, “ The Phi- 
listines are after you,” he stretched himself 
again and broke the rope just as if it had 
been a piece of thread. 

Delilah was getting angry, but she spoke 
to him once more and said, “ Now, Samson, 
you have been fooling me ; tell me this time 
how any one could bind you.” I suppose 
he looked around the room and saw the 
loom on which Delilah was weaving cloth 
and he said, “ If you weave my long hair in 
the web you are weaving I won’t be strong 
any more.” So that night when he was 
asleep she wove his hair into the web as if it 


158 Samson, the Strong Man 

had been part of the silk she was using and 
drove a stake into the ground to hold it. Then 
she called to him again, “ Samson, the Phi- 
listines are after you.” But he just got up 
out of bed and lifted the whole thing, loom 
and peg and all. 

Then Delilah said, “ O Samson, you don’t 
love me ; three times you have told me 
stories ; you haven’t told me what it is that 
makes you so strong.” She seems to have 
wanted to get the money those Philistines 
had promised her, for every day she kept 
asking Samson to tell her what made him so 
strong. By and by he got so tired of hear- 
ing her that he just said, “ I’ll tell you ; my 
long hair has never been cut : if it is cut then 
I will be no stronger than other men.” 

This time she knew he had told the truth. 
So she sent for the Philistines, Samson’s ene- 
mies, and said, “ Come, for now he has told 
me the truth. He says that the reason why 
he is so strong is that his hair has never been 
cut, and that if it is cut he will be just like 
other men. Bring me the money you prom- 
ised me and I will cut off his hair as soon as 
he goes to sleep, and then when he is weak 
you can easily make him your prisoner.” 
That was just what they wanted, those ene- 
mies of his, so they came to the house and 


Samson, the Strong Man 159 

brought the money they had promised to 
give Delilah. 

Pretty soon Samson went to sleep, and 
while he was asleep, and without his know- 
ing anything about it, Delilah had his hair 
cut. Then when she called out, “ O Sam- 
son, the Philistines are after you,” he woke 
up and said to himself, “I will do just as I 
have always done,” but this time he found 
that he wasn’t strong and when he felt his 
head he saw what was the matter ; his hair 
was cut off. So his enemies got hold of him 
without much trouble and the wicked men 
blinded him and put chains on him and took 
him back to Gaza where they lived. There 
they had a place where they used to make a 
horse turn a mill, and in this place they put 
Samson and made him do the grinding. But 
after hair is cut it doesn’t stay short very 
long, as we all know : it grows a little every 
day, and Samson’s was just like other 
people’s ; his hair began to grow and kept on 
growing. 

Some time after this the Philistines had a 
great feast in honour of their God, who, they 
said, had helped them capture Samson. 
There were so many of them that the great 
house was crowded full and people were on 
the roof looking down into the court. While 


160 Samson, the Strong Man 

the feast was going on some one suggested 
that they bring out Samson so that he could 
amuse them by showing them some of the 
things he could do, because he was so strong. 
They brought in this poor blind prisoner, a 
little boy leading him by the hand, and made 
fun of him, but they seem to have forgotten 
that all the time his hair had been growing 
and with it his strength had been coming 
back. 

After Samson had given his performances 
they let him rest and then he said to the boy 
who had been leading him, “ Let me feel the 
pillars which hold up the roof ; I want to lean 
against them,” so the boy led him over to 
them. He took hold of one pillar with each 
arm and then he prayed, “ Oh, God, remem- 
ber me and strengthen me just this once.” 
Then he said, “ Let me die with the Philis- 
tines,” and pulled the two pillars together 
with all his might. Down came the roof and 
Samson and a great many of the people were 
killed. 


XX 


A Great Victory 

I N the days of Elijah, one of God’s proph- 
ets or preachers, a good many people 
had turned away from the true God, and 
had begun to worship a heathen god, called 
Baal, and a good many couldn’t make up 
their minds which God they ought to worship. 
Elijah thought it would be a good thing to 
show the people that this Baal, whom they 
called a god, wasn’t a real god ; that there 
was only one God, the God whom he wor- 
shipped. 

There were a lot of men in that country who 
called themselves prophets of Baal, while 
Elijah was the only prophet of God who was 
left. So one day Elijah sent word that all 
the people and all the prophets of Baal should 
come to Mount Carmel. A great many came 
there and Elijah stood up and said to them : 
“ Why don’t you choose now whom you will 
serve ? If the Lord is God, follow Him ; but 
if Baal, then follow him.” The people didn’t 
know how to answer so they kept still. Then 
161 


162 A Great Victory 

Elijah said, “You see how it is: the king has 
killed all of God’s prophets except me; I’m the 
only one left ; while there are four hundred 
and fifty who are Baal’s prophets. Let Baal’s 
prophets take an ox, cut him in pieces the 
way we do when we offer a sacrifice, and lay 
the pieces on the wood on the altar, but don’t 
set the wood on fire. I will take another ox 
and cut it in pieces and put the pieces on 
wood on another altar and I won’t light the 
wood either. Then we will pray to our Gods ; 
you pray to yours, and I will pray to mine, 
asking Him to set the wood on fire and burn 
up the offering. Whichever God sends the 
fire will be our God.” This pleased the peo- 
ple and they said, “ All right ; you have said 
the right thing, Elijah.” 

Then Elijah turned to these prophets of 
Baal and said, “There are so many of you, 
you begin first.” So these four hundred and 
fifty prophets took an ox, cut it in pieces and 
put the pieces on the wood which had been 
laid on the altar. They didn’t light the wood, 
but when everything was ready they began 
to pray to their god, Baal, asking him to send 
fire to their altar. They began in the morn- 
ing, calling out loud, “O Baal, hear us; send 
us fire ; O Baal, answer us.” But the fire 
didn’t come. Elijah stood there looking at 


A Great Victory 163 

them. Finally they jumped up on the altar, 
and cried out, “ O Baal, answer us ; Baal, 
answer us,” but it was no use ; no one an- 
swered. 

After this had been going on all morning 
Elijah began to make fun of them. He came 
near their altar and said, “ Call louder ; he is 
a god, you say, and must hear you. But 
maybe he is talking with some one, or he 
has gone away, or perhaps he has gone to 
sleep and you will have to wake him up ; 
call louder.” This, of course, made them 
angry so that they made more noise than 
ever. “ O Baal, hear us ; O Baal, answer us.” 
But the fire didn’t come. 

The people who worshipped heathen gods 
thought that their gods were pleased if they 
did something to themselves that hurt ; just 
as nowadays in India we sometimes see men 
who think they are pleasing their gods by 
lying on a bed of sharp nails. So these men 
began to cut themselves with sharp knives, 
so that the blood ran out. But it did no 
good. There stood the altar with the pieces 
of the ox on the wood all ready to burn, but 
no fire came. And so it was all afternoon ; 
nothing happened in answer to their prayers. 

Towards evening Elijah asked the people 
to come over to where he had built up an 


164 A Great Victory 

old broken-down stone altar. Then he made 
them dig a deep trench all around it and 
had the people fill the trench full of water. 
You see he didn’t want anybody to say that 
the fire came from anywhere near the altar. 
When this was done he put a lot of wood on 
the altar and cut up an ox and put the pieces 
on the wood just as the prophets of Baal had 
done. Elijah was so sure that God would 
answer his prayer that after everything was 
fixed he called some men and said, “ Get 
four barrels of water and pour it on the 
wood,” and when they had poured the four 
barrels of water over the wood and the altar, 
so that everything was as wet as could be, 
he said, “ Do it again.” So they filled the 
barrels and poured them over the altar once 
more. But even then he wasn’t satisfied for 
he said, “ Do it once more,” and once more 
the barrels were filled and the water poured 
out over the altar. Nothing could have been 
less likely to take fire than that wet wood 
when Elijah got through with it. 

Elijah must have been a curious-looking 
man. He had lived outdoors so long that 
he must have been browned by the sun, his 
hair and beard would be long, and his cloth- 
ing would be just a long rough coat tied 
around his waist with a leather belt. And 


A Great Victory 165 

there he stood that day, in the midst of the 
people, the only prophet of the true God 
among four hundred and fifty prophets of 
the false god. 

And now that everything was ready, Elijah 
stretched out his arms towards heaven and 
prayed to God who sent the ravens to feed 
him and w’ho had taken care of him all 
through his lonely years : “ Lord God of 
Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, let these people 
know to-day that you are the true God, and 
that I am your servant and that what I have 
done here to-day I have done because you 
told me to do it. Hear me, O Lord, hear 
me : send the fire and burn up this offering.” 
Almost before he had finished speaking such 
a great flame of fire came down from heaven 
that it not only burned up the wood and the 
ox, but also the stones of the altar and dried 
up all the water in the trench around the 
altar. Of course the people were astonished. 
They bowed down on the ground and began 
to say : “ The Lord He is God ; the Lord He 
is God.” So Elijah and Elijah’s God had a 
great victory that day. 


XXI 


A Famous Shipwreck 

T HERE once lived a great Christian 
missionary named Paul, who, be- 
cause he told the people who were 
Jews some truths they didn’t like to hear, 
made a good many enemies. These Jewish 
enemies became so angry at Paul that they 
made up their minds that they would kill 
him as soon as they could. They watched 
for a chance, and one day when a great 
crowd was gathered about their temple in 
Jerusalem, they found Paul in there with 
some men who were not Jews. This made 
them still more angry, because they thought 
that it was not right for any one but a Jew to 
go into the temple. 

Paul had a right to go in, because, al- 
though he had become a Christian, he was 
by birth a Jew. As soon as they saw Paul 
these enemies of his began to call out to the 
crowd, “ Here’s the man who has been talk- 
ing against us Jews, and our law and our 
temple ; and besides you see what he has 
done ; he has brought these Greeks into our 
166 


A Famous Shipwreck 167 

temple ; he ought to be killed. ,, This made 
a great stir : there was a regular riot in Jeru- 
salem. Some of the crowd caught hold of 
Paul, who was a little man, and not able to 
do much in such a crowd, and dragged him 
out of the temple and began to beat him. 

As they were beating him and dragging 
him away to kill him, somebody, who must 
have been a friend of Paul’s, ran to the bar- 
racks where the soldiers lived and said to the 
captain, “ There’s a riot over by the temple ; 
they are killing a man.” As soon as he 
heard that the captain took some of his 
soldiers and marched them down to the 
place where the crowd was. As soon as 
they saw the soldiers the men who were 
beating Paul let him alone and the captain 
took him. Of course the captain must have 
thought that Paul was a very wicked man 
and had done something terrible to make 
the people so angry. It so happened that 
some time before this a man came from Egypt 
and had persuaded thousands of men in Je- 
rusalem and Judea to kill people. The cap- 
tain thought Paul was this man ; though he 
wasn’t sure. So he had Paul tied with 
chains, the way they treated dangerous pris- 
oners. 

Then the captain began to inquire about 


168 A Famous Shipwreck 

him. “ Who is this man ? ” he said to the 
crowd. “ What has he done that you are 
creating such a disturbance over him?” 
But there was so much noise, one man say- 
ing one thing and another something else, 
that nobody could tell what any one said ; 
and as they kept crowding upon him and 
were calling out, “ Kill him, kill him,” the 
captain thought the best thing he could do 
would be to protect Paul until he could 
really find out something about the trouble. 
So he called his soldiers and took Paul to 
the castle. 

But before he took him inside, while he 
was standing on the steps of the castle, Paul 
said, “ Will you let me say something to 
these people?” And the captain said, “Go 
ahead.” Then Paul told them about him- 
self ; who he was and how he was a Jew 
who had become a Christian. This only 
made the people more angry and they 
shouted, “ Kill him ; he isn’t fit to live.” 
More than forty of them formed themselves 
into a sort of secret society and said they 
wouldn’t eat or drink until they had killed 
Paul. But the captain found out about it 
and one night he sent Paul down to Caes- 
area where the governor lived, with a guard 
of soldiers. 


A Famous Shipwreck 169 

Finally Paul saw that the people of that 
country wouldn’t be fair to him so he said, 
“I want to have my case tried in Rome 
before the emperor.” This he had a right 
to do because he was a Roman citizen. 
This meant that they would have to send 
Paul from Caesarea across the sea to Rome. 

If you will look at your geography you 
will remember that this sea is called the 
Mediterranean and that Caesarea was on 
the coast of Palestine and Rome was in 
Italy, that land shaped like a boot, which 
sticks out into this sea. Finally a day came 
when a sailing vessel was to start for various 
ports in the Mediterranean. They took Paul 
and some other prisoners and put them on 
board in charge of soldiers. Paul had one 
consolation ; some of his old friends went 
with him ; one was the ‘‘beloved physician ” 
as he called him, Dr. Luke, who had often 
travelled with Paul on his missionary journeys 
and who is the one who tells us this story. 

And so they sailed along until they came 
to a place called Myra where the soldiers 
with Paul and his friends and the other 
prisoners were put on board a ship going to 
Italy. Counting the sailors there were 266 
people in all. Now their trouble began. 
The wind was in the wrong direction so that 


170 A Famous Shipwreck 

they had to go slowly, but at last they came 
to a place called Fair Havens, where they 
stayed, as Paul thought, too long. For now 
the stormy part of the year was at hand and 
Paul said to the captain of the soldiers, “ I 
am afraid that we are going to lose the ship 
and with it our own lives ; we ought to stay 
right where we are,” but the soldier thought 
Paul didn’t know much about ships and 
wouldn’t listen to him. Paul, however, kept 
on praying to God to save them. 

After a good deal of discussion they de- 
cided to leave Fair Havens, so one day they 
weighed anchor and set sail. Things kept 
getting worse and worse. The wind blew 
so hard and the sea was so high that the 
ship was in danger of breaking apart. How- 
ever, they managed to fasten it together with 
ropes, but at last the wind was so strong 
they had to lower the sails and let the ship 
go where the wind drove her. 

The storm kept up so that the next day 
they threw a lot of the freight overboard to 
make her lighter and the third day the 
sailors cut away the masts and rigging, 
hoping in this way to save the ship. But 
it was no use. The storm grew worse and 
worse, so that for many days they couldn’t 
see the sun nor the stars, and they didn’t 


A Famous Shipwreck 171 

know where they were. In those days they 
had no compass, and when they were out of 
sight of land they steered by the stars at 
night and the sun by day. The captain and 
the sailors were so excited that they even 
forgot to eat. 

But one night the God whom Paul had 
loved and served, and for whom he was will- 
ing to give his very life, sent one of His 
angels to the ship. He came into Paul’s 
cabin and said, “ Paul, don’t be afraid ; you 
have asked to have your case tried at Rome 
before the emperor and you will surely get 
to Rome, and God has heard your prayers 
and will save the men who are on the ship 
with you, but the ship itself will be wrecked.” 
It’s a good thing to be in good company. 
The next morning after the angel’s visit Paul 
went out on deck and said, “ Listen to me. 
You ought to have listened to me before 
when I told you it was dangerous to leave 
Fair Havens at this time of year ; but even 
now, bad as it is, I want you to be of good 
cheer. We will lose the ship but all of us 
will be saved. I know this because the God 
whom I love and serve sent me one of His 
messengers last night to tell me so. There- 
fore, cheer up ; I am sure God can do what 
He says.” 


172 A Famous Shipwreck 

At first the sailors didn’t care much for 
what Paul said, but one night after two weeks 
of tossing about in the tempest, they thought 
they were coming near some land. When 
they dropped the lead down in the water 
three or four times to see how deep it was 
they found it was getting shallower all the 
time, and as the wind was blowing towards 
the land they put four anchors out from the 
stern and sat down in despair longing for 
daylight. 

As usual there were some mean men on 
the ship who wanted to save themselves no 
matter what happened to the other people ; 
so pretending that they were going to put 
out more anchors they lowered the rowboat 
into the water ; they intended to row over to 
the shore and let the rest take care of them- 
selves the best they could. When Paul saw 
it he was angry and told the captain of the 
soldiers that if the men didn't stay on the 
ship, nobody could be saved, and so the sol- 
diers cut the rowboat adrift. Then when 
day came Paul persuaded them that they 
ought to eat something, for they were get- 
ting weak from lack of food. When the food 
was ready, Paul, like the good man that he 
was, thanked God for it and they all took 
some. 


A Famous Shipwreck 173 

After they had eaten, they all felt better, 
and began to make the ship still lighter by 
throwing more of the cargo overboard. 
Nothing, however, seemed to do any good, 
so they decided to beach the ship and save 
themselves. They hoisted sail, cut away the 
anchors and let the wind drive the vessel on 
the shore. When she struck the bow stuck 
fast in the sand but the stern remained afloat, 
and the big waves dashed against it so hard 
that it was soon broken. 

Some of the soldiers wanted to kill the 
prisoners, for it was the law in those days 
that if a keeper let his prisoner escape the 
keeper should be killed, and these keepers 
saw that now their prisoners were going to 
escape. But the captain of the soldiers had 
become a friend of his prisoner, Paul, and 
wanted to save him, so he wouldn’t let the 
other soldiers do anything of the kind ; but 
he told everybody who could swim to jump 
overboard and go ashore first ; then the 
others, including Paul, on planks and other 
floating things from the ship, were helped 
ashore until every one was saved. Paul was 
right, the ship was lost but the 266 people 
were all saved. 


XXII 


A Strange Dream 

I N Jerusalem, where God’s people lived, 
was a beautiful temple, one of the most 
beautiful buildings in the world, I sup- 
pose. It was built of marble and inside it 
was decorated with all sorts of precious 
woods and stones. Many of the utensils 
which they used in their worship were made 
of gold and silver, and the people thought a 
great deal of them. They were very sacred : 
only the priests were allowed to use them. 

But, sad to relate, one time a lot of soldiers 
from Babylon, under a king named Nebu- 
chadnezzar, had come over to Jerusalem and 
after they had conquered the Hebrews, they 
tore down the beautiful temple and carried a 
lot of the people back to Babylon as slaves, 
and they also took with them all the gold 
and silver things out of the temple. Finally 
Nebuchadnezzar died and his son Belshazzar 
was the king. 

One time when he was having a great din- 
ner, where there was a good deal of wine drink- 
174 


1 75 


A Strange Dream 

ing, he thought it would be smart to use 
these sacred cups to drink from, and show 
that he didn’t care for the Hebrews’ God ; so 
he had the cups and other vessels brought 
into the dining-room and filled with wine, 
just as if they had been common drinking 
cups. Then he and all the people who had 
come to the dinner drank wine from them, 
and told how wonderful were their own 
gods ; gods made of gold and brass and iron 
and wood and stone ; gods which couldn’t 
hear or see or know ; they said, “ These are 
the real gods ; that God of the Hebrews can’t 
do anything,” and then they drank out of 
the sacred cups. But while they were using 
the sacred cups in this way, suddenly part 
of a great hand appeared, just the fingers 
and palm, nothing else. Up there on the 
wall where the light from the candlestick 
made it plain, this hand wrote four strange 
words : Mene, mene, tekel, upharsin. 

This was enough to frighten anybody and 
you may be sure the king was frightened. 
When he saw this great hand his face grew 
pale, his knees knocked together, and he 
could hardly think, let alone speak. How- 
ever, he managed to cry out at last and 
asked his wise men to come and tell him 
what these strange words meant. They 


176 A Strange Dream 

came in and they were as much surprised as 
anybody to see those curious words on the 
wall. “Whoever will read that writing up 
there/’ he said, pointing to it, “ and tell me 
what it means, I’ll make him ruler of this 
country.” But no one of them could help 
him. They couldn’t make out what those 
curious words were, Mene, mene, tekel, 
UPHARSIN. Then there was a great commo- 
tion ; nobody seemed to know what to do, 
and the king was so frightened he looked 
sick. This bothered his servants, for they 
were frightened, not only at the strange 
words, but at the condition of the king ; they 
didn’t know what would happen. 

When the queen heard what had happened 
she went into the dining-room and said, 
“ Don’t be frightened. One time, some years 
ago, your father Nebuchadnezzar had a curi- 
ous dream, and a man named Daniel, one of 
the Hebrew prisoners, was the only one who 
could tell him what it meant. Why not send 
for him?” This seemed like a good sugges- 
tion, so Daniel was sent for. As soon as he 
came in the king said, “ Are you the same 
Daniel that my father’s soldiers brought from 
Jerusalem? I hear that you can tell what 
curious things mean. Well, here’s one. 
You see those strange words up there on the 


A Strange Dream 177 

wall ? The fingers of a great big hand came 
in here and wrote them, and I’ve asked the 
wisest men I have to tell me what they mean, 
but not one of them can do it ; I promised to 
do all kinds of things for them, but it’s no 
use. Now, if you can read those words and 
tell me why they came there and what they 
mean, I will give you money and make you 
one of the rulers of the country.” Then 
Daniel said, “ I don’t want your money, but 
I’ll read those words for you, and I’ll tell you 
what they mean. God made your father a 
great man and gave him everything any- 
body could wish for ; He made him a ruler 
over all sorts of people everywhere ; he could 
do whatever he pleased with them. But he 
became very proud and conceited : he 
thought he was doing it all and that God 
had nothing to do with it. God had to pun- 
ish him, so He made him like one of the wild 
animals out on the plains, and he went out 
there and lived like one of them ; he ate 
grass like an ox and slept outdoors, until he 
learned that it was God who had control of 
everything in the world. You know what 
happened to your father, but nevertheless 
you’ve been doing the very things God had 
to punish your father for doing. You have 
even gone so far as to take the sacred ves- 


178 A Strange Dream 

sels from our temple and use them as com- 
mon drinking cups ; you have praised your 
wooden gods and stone gods, which can’t 
see nor hear nor know anything; but our 
God, who can do anything He likes with 
you, you have neglected. God sent that 
hand and wrote those words up there, Mene, 
MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN.” 

This made the king very uneasy ; he didn’t 
like to hear that the God whom he had in- 
sulted was the author of the strange writing. 
Daniel went on, ‘‘This is what the words 
mean : Mene, your kingdom is about to end ; 
tekel, God has found you to be no good ; 
upharsin, your kingdom is to be cut up and 
given away.” As soon as could be Daniel 
was rewarded as the king said he would be 
and was made one of the rulers of the coun- 
try, but that very night King Belshazzar was 
killed. 


XXIII 


Gideon’s Curious Cattle 

T HE people of Israel and the Midian- 
ites who lived near each other were 
enemies. Oftentimes just when the 
Israelites' crops were ready for harvesting 
great crowds of Midianites would rush 
across the country, cut down the grain and 
burn it or carry it away. They would drive 
off their sheep and oxen. There were such 
crowds of them that the poor Israelites 
couldn't stop them ; indeed sometimes the 
Israelites had to leave their homes and live 
in the caves in the mountains so that their 
enemies couldn't find them. 

Sometimes after they had thrashed their 
grain they would put it in the great dry 
tower-like places where they squeezed out the 
grapes to make wine. I suppose they 
thought their enemies wouldn’t think of 
looking in such a place for grain, and then 
after their enemies had marched away they 
could come back and get it. 

But the Israelites, you remember, wor- 
179 


180 Gideon’s Curious Battle 

shipped the true God ; some of them how- 
ever had forgotten Him and had built altars 
to heathen gods ; that was really why God 
let these enemies hurt them. In fact a great 
many of them had become just like their 
heathen neighbours and worshipped the gods 
of the heathen ; but after their enemies had 
destroyed all their property and had driven 
the people into the mountains and they 
didn’t know what to do, they had a prayer- 
meeting and prayed to the true God to help 
them. 

They knew that He had helped His people 
in days gone by and they knew He could 
help them now. They remembered how He 
brought their great-grandfathers out in Egypt, 
and they felt sure He could still do some- 
thing for them. God heard their prayer and 
answered it. He sent one of His preachers 
to the Israelites who said to them, “ Surely 
you haven’t forgotten how God brought you 
out of Egypt, or how He has always helped 
you against your enemies? Don’t you re- 
member how He told you not to be afraid? 
But you have been disobedient.” Neverthe- 
less God was going to help them, as we shall 
see. 

In one of the towns in the country where 
the Israelites were now, there lived a man 


Gideon’s Curious Battle 181 

named Joash. He was poor and nobody 
thought much of his family. His house 
would have been the last one you or I would 
have looked in to find a great man. He had 
quite a number of sons and the youngest of 
them was named Gideon. 

In those days the youngest son wasn't 
thought much of by his older brothers. But 
one day this young man Gideon had a great 
surprise. He was thrashing wheat and 
hiding it in their wine-press, when suddenly 
an angel stood beside him and called him a 
mighty man of valour, and said, “God is 
with you.” When Gideon heard that, and 
thought of his poor home and all the broth- 
ers who were older than he, he could only 
say, “ How can God be with us ? See how 
these enemies of ours treat us. No, God has 
forgotten us.” But the angel said, “ God 
has chosen you, Gideon, to be the one to 
save the people from their enemies.” Even 
then Gideon couldn’t believe it was true and 
he answered the angel, “ How can I save the 
people from their enemies? ” Then the angel, 
who was really the Lord, answered, “ Surely 
I will be with you, Gideon ; you will be able 
to destroy these Midianites as if they were 
only one man.” 

But still Gideon couldn’t feel sure that it 


182 


Gideon’s Curious Battle 


was the Lord speaking to him, so he said to 
the angel, “Show me something that will 
make it sure that the Lord is really talking 
with me.” Then Gideon went back to the 
house and prepared a present for the angel 
such as they used to give in those days : 
some meat and bread in a basket, and some 
soup in a dish. When he gave them to the 
angel, the angel said, “ Put the meat and the 
bread on the rock,” and as soon as Gideon 
had done it, the angel touched them with a 
stick he held in his hand, and fire came out 
of the rock and burned them up. While 
they were burning the angel disappeared. 
Gideon felt so sure now that the Lord had 
been there and had spoken to him that he 
was frightened, for in those days people 
understood that no one could look upon the 
Lord and live. But the Lord said, “ Don’t 
be afraid, Gideon, you will not die.” 

Those were the days when people wor- 
shipped God by burning some kind of an 
animal on an altar. These altars were very 
often mere heaps of stones, on which wood 
was placed ; then the wood was set on fire and 
the animal was killed and put on the burning 
wood. They thought that the smoke rising 
up from the fire and the smell of the burning 
animal were like so many prayers going up 


Gideon’s Curious Battle 183 

to God, and that God in that way knew that 
they were worshipping Him. 

After Gideon had gone to bed on the 
night of that wonderful day when the Lord 
had talked with him, the Lord spoke to him 
again. “ Gideon,” he heard Him say, “ I want 
you to break down that heathen altar your 
father built, and in place of it build an altar 
to Me ; then when it is built offer to Me one 
of your father’s oxen.” Gideon was afraid 
that the men of the city, if they should see 
him breaking down this altar, would stop 
him ; so instead of waiting until daylight, he 
got some men and went right to work that 
very night, so that in the morning when the 
people began to go past his house they saw 
the old altar torn down and the new one 
standing in its place. It was just as he 
thought, the men were angry. They came 
together in crowds, and you could hear them 
say as they pointed to the altar, “ Who did 
this?” When they heard that Gideon had 
done it they began to call out, “ Bring out 
Gideon ; we want to kill him for destroying 
our altar.” But Gideon’s father went out 
and talked with the men, so that by and by 
they went away. 

Some time after this Israel’s old enemies, 
the Midianites, attacked them again, just as 


184 Gideon’s Curious Battle 

they had often done before. They came over 
in the country near where Gideon was living, 
and when he saw them he remembered how 
the Lord had told him that he was to be the 
one who should save the people from their 
enemies. As quickly as he could he sent 
messengers out through the country and 
called the soldiers to join his army. Great 
crowds of them came. 

It seems as if Gideon was not quite sure 
even now that he was the one who was to be 
their general, so he prayed to the Lord, “If 
I am really the one who is to lead these sol- 
diers against our enemies show me this sign : 
I will put a bunch of wool outdoors to-night ; 
if the wool is wet with dew in the morning 
while the ground all around it is dry, then I’ll 
know that God means that I should do this.” 
When he went out in the morning the ground 
was dry and the wool was so wet he could 
wring water out of it. 

But even this didn’t satisfy him, so he 
spoke to God again. “ Don’t be angry with 
me,” he said. “ Give me one more sign. I’ll 
put the wool out again to-night, and now if 
the ground is wet with dew in the morning 
and the wool is dry then I shall know surely 
that God means that I should be the leader 
in this war.” So once again he put the 


Gideon’s Curious Battle 185 

bunch of wool on the ground and in the 
morning the ground was wet, while the wool 
was dry. Gideon was now convinced ; he 
knew that God meant him to be the general 
to lead the soldiers against their enemies. 

When God saw that Gideon had over 
thirty thousand soldiers He thought Gideon 
might think that he and these soldiers had 
won the victory through their own strength, 
so He said, “ Gideon, you have too big an 
army. Go out and tell them that anybody 
who is afraid can go home now, before the 
war begins.” 

Gideon must have been not only as- 
tonished, but worried when he saw what 
happened. He must have thought that all 
of his soldiers were going to leave him, for 
when he said, “ All who are afraid may go 
home,” more than half the soldiers turned 
round and went back. Instead of thirty-two 
thousand he found he had only ten thousand. 
Still they seemed too many to God ; still He 
thought Gideon might say, “We won the 
victory ourselves.” So He said, “You still 
have too many. Let them march down to 
the river, and I will pick out those who are 
to go with you into battle.” Gideon got 
them in order and they marched off until 
they came to the river. 


i86 


Gideon’s Curious Battle 


Then God said, “Watch these men and 
see how they drink. Some will be in a hurry 
to drink and will bend over on their knees 
and lap up the water the way a dog does ; 
others won’t care how long it takes ; they 
will reach out their hands and lift up the 
water little by little to their mouths. Count 
the number of men who drink in each of 
these ways.” After they were counted Gid- 
eon found that only three hundred had lapped 
up the water, while all the rest had dipped 
it up with their hands. Then God said to 
Gideon again, “The three hundred are the 
men you want for your army. Let the others 
go back to their tents.” Again Gideon must 
have been astonished, for now instead of 
thirty-two thousand soldiers he had only 
three hundred. Only three hundred men, 
and down there in the valley he looked upon 
the great sea of tents where the enemy was 
encamped ! 

It must have been discouraging for a gen- 
eral to be left with such a small army before 
any battle had been fought. But Gideon 
believed that God knew best, so he sent all 
but the three hundred back to their tents, 
while this little company stayed with him. 

God knew that Gideon would be afraid to 
go to battle with so few men so He said to 


Gideon’s Curious Battle 187 

him that night, “ Gideon, while it is dark go 
down into the enemy’s camp and you will 
hear something.” This was a curious errand 
for a general, but Gideon obeyed. He called 
one of his servants and the two went down 
the mountain into the valley where the great 
army was quietly sleeping in its tents. He 
was surprised to find so many men : they 
seemed to be as thick as sand on the sea- 
shore and they had so many camels he 
couldn’t begin to count them. As he walked 
along in the darkness he thought he heard 
some one talking, and as he listened he found 
that one soldier was telling another a dream 
he had. This soldier said, “ I had a queer 
dream last night. I thought I saw a round 
cracker roll along the ground into our camp, 
and it struck against one of our tents and 
upset it.” Then the other soldier said, “It 
means that Gideon, the Israelite general, is 
going to beat us in battle.” 

These soldiers didn’t know Gideon was 
there, so he went quietly back to his own 
little army very happy. He was sure now 
that God was helping them. That very 
night he called his men together, the three 
hundred men who were left. He told them 
that he knew that God was going to make 
them victorious. Then he did a strange 


1 88 Gideon’s Curious Battle 

thing, he divided his army into three com- 
panies of one hundred men each, and instead 
of giving them spears, or axes or bows and 
arrows, as you would suppose he ought to 
have done, he gave each man a trumpet to 
carry in his right hand, and a pitcher with a 
light in it to carry in the other hand. 

The soldiers looked surprised, and some of 
them said, “ What in the world are these 
trumpets and pitchers and lights for ? Does 
he expect us to fight with these things ? ” 
Gideon saw that a good many of the soldiers 
didn’t understand what he was doing, so he 
said to them, “ All you have to do is to watch 
me, and do just what I do. When you hear 
me blow my trumpet you blow your trumpets 
all around the enemy’s camp and call out as 
loud as you can, ‘ For the Lord and for 
Gideon.’ ” It was now about eleven o’clock 
at night and very dark. In the darkness one 
company of Gideon’s soldiers marched over 
to one side of the camp, another went to the 
other side, and Gideon with the other hun- 
dred men stood in front. 

The soldiers were sleeping in their tents. 
As soon as Gideon got as near the enemy as 
he thought he ought to be, he blew a great 
blast on his trumpet, and then smashed the 
pitcher with it, and held the torch that was 


Gideon’s Curious Battle 189 

in the pitcher in his hand. At once every 
one of Gideon’s three hundred soldiers did 
the same thing : each one blew his trumpet 
as loud as he could and grabbed the torch 
out of the broken pitcher and held it up, as 
he shouted “ For the Lord and for Gideon.” 
Then they stood there in the dark blowing 
their trumpets and shouting and waving 
their torches. 

When the soldiers who had been asleep 
heard this great noise and saw all the lights 
they were confused and hardly knew what to 
do. They imagined that a great army had 
come upon them because in the dark night 
they couldn’t see how many of them there 
were. They got up as fast as they could 
and began to run away. It was so dark that 
they could hardly see each other, and some- 
times they couldn’t tell their own soldiers 
from Gideon’s soldiers, so a good many of 
them killed the men in their own army. As 
they ran Gideon’s men ran after them, and 
sent and called some of those who had gone 
to their tents, and before long Gideon and 
his little army had won a great victory. 
Best of all he didn’t say that he and his sol- 
diers had won the fight, but he was ready 
and glad to acknowledge that it was because 
God was on their side that they had won. 


XXIV 


The Missionary Miracle 

E have in our Bible four stories of 



the life of Jesus. We call each of 
them a Gospel. This is an old- 


fashioned word meaning “ Good news.” 
Then we add the name of the man who 
wrote the story and speak of them as the 
Gospel of Matthew, of Mark, of Luke or of 


John. 


These four Gospels are not exactly alike, 
for though they all tell us about Jesus some 
tell one thing and some another. For in- 
stance, that story we love so much, the birth 
of the baby Jesus in Bethlehem, is told only 
by Luke in his Gospel, and the story of the 
wise men’s visit is told only by Matthew. It 
is the same with other parts of the life of our 
Lord. Sometimes only Mark tells the story, 
sometimes only John, or both Mark and Luke 
will tell it and not John and Matthew, and 
so on. 

Now, when we begin to read the miracles 
which Jesus did, we find the story sometimes 
190 


The Missionary Miracle 191 

in one Gospel, sometimes in another ; a few 
are in two Gospels ; and fewer still are in 
three ; only one is found in all four : in 
Matthew, in Mark, in Luke and in John. 
This seems to show that all these men must 
have thought this miracle was a very im- 
portant one ; whatever else they left out they 
couldn’t leave this out. I have called it the 
Missionary Miracle. See if you think that 
is a good name for it. 

It was summer time in Galilee and in one 
of the small villages near the lake lived a 
little boy who wanted to spend the day out 
in the country, or as we would say now, he 
wanted to go on a picnic. So his mother 
put up some lunch for him, as mothers 
always have done, and he started out. He 
walked along the shore of the lake throwing 
in a stone every now and then, and maybe 
fishing a little, but I don’t know surely about 
that. 

By and by he found that a great many 
people were all going in one direction 
around the end of the lake, and when he 
asked one of the boys in the crowd what was 
the matter, this boy told him that a wonder- 
ful man had been in the city of Capernaum 
where he lived. He said this man had met 
a blind man and had made his eyes well so 


192 The Missionary Miracle 

that he could see. “ Then,” the boy went on, 
“ he met a friend of mine who was a lame 
man and made his legs well, so that he could 
walk ; but the sick people crowded around 
this man so that he hardly had time to eat, 
and at last he got into a boat with some of 
his friends and they have sailed across the 
sea ; and now we are taking our sick people 
around by land to meet him when he comes 
ashore to see if he won’t cure some more of 
them. You’d better come along and see 
some of the things he can do.” 

So our boy joined the crowd going around 
the lake, just as you would have done if you 
had been there. When he reached the other 
side, quite a long walk, there he found more 
people than he could count, and as he 
worked his way through the crowd he found 
the wonderful man right in the middle of 
the crowd, and he was speaking to the 
people. All around him were sick people 
who had been cured and they were looking 
up into the man’s face so pleased and happy. 
The boy heard some one call the man who 
was speaking Jesus, and it was He, our 
Lord. 

Although it was growing late in the day 
the people still stayed there, until near even- 
ing, these special friends of Jesus, His 


The Missionary Miracle 193 

apostles He called them, came to Him and 
said, “ There isn’t anything here for these 
people to eat ; send them away so that they 
may go into the villages and buy food.” 
But Jesus, when He looked at the crowd, over 
five thousand people, felt sorry for them. 
They seemed to Him like sheep without a 
shepherd. And I am sure that when God 
looks down on the great crowds of people 
in heathen lands, millions of them, He still 
feels sorry for them, for they too are like 
sheep without a shepherd. Indeed we know 
that God so loved the world that He sent 
His only Son, this same Jesus, to help us. 

But Jesus said, “ No, they need not go 
away ; you feed them.” Then these apostles 
looked at each other in surprise. “ Feed five 
thousand people ! How can we?” one said. 
And another, named Philip, said to Him, 
“ Why, if we had two hundred shillings (that 
would be about fifty dollars of our money) we 
couldn’t buy enough to give each one even 
a little.” 

In the meantime another apostle, named 
Andrew, had met the little boy with the lunch 
basket. I suppose the boy had eaten all he 
wanted and had some left over. So when 
Jesus asked, “ How much bread have you? ” 
Andrew said, “ There’s a little boy here who 


194 The Missionary Miracle 

has five barley loaves and two fishes, but 
that won’t be very much for so many people.” 
Of course it wouldn’t be very much, if they 
were there alone ; but Jesus was with them. 

And as we think of the little we have and 
the great multitudes of needy people in 
heathen lands it seems very, very little. But 
Jesus is with us still. 

We will see what happened to their lit- 
tle when Jesus helped. Jesus only said, 
** Bring the loaves and the fishes to Me.” 
Can you imagine how that boy must have 
felt when Andrew came up to him and said, 
“ Little boy, Jesus wants your bread and 
fishes.” He must have said, “ Why, this is 
mine ; it’s all I’ve got ; if you take it I’ll be 
hungry before I get home. You can’t have 
it.” And we often say just the same thing 
now when God asks us to give something 
we have so that He may use it to help the 
poor people whom we call heathen. But 
fortunately for the little boy Andrew pur- 
suaded him to give his lunch to Jesus. I 
say fortunately for the little boy, for as long 
as the Bible lasts, and that will be forever, 
this little boy will be remembered because he 
did something for Jesus. 

Lots of men have lived since then who 
have done what people called great things, 


The Missionary Miracle 195 

built big houses, won great battles, made lots 
of money, and now we don’t even know that 
they ever lived ; but this little boy who gave 
his little lunch to Jesus will never be forgot- 
ten. Good thing to do after all, wasn’t it ? 

Then Jesus told His apostles to make the 
people sit down on the grass in groups of 
fifty or a hundred. You see He wanted to 
do everything in an orderly way. After they 
were all seated Jesus turned His face towards 
heaven and thanked His Father in heaven 
for giving them something to eat. Then He 
broke the bread into little pieces, and the 
fishes, too, and gave each of His apostles 
some of the pieces and told them to give 
them to the people. 

Can’t you see those twelve men, Andrew 
and Philip and the rest of them, going up 
and down, giving a piece of bread and a 
piece of fish to each one? And how the 
people must have wondered ! And how 
queer it would have been if after the apostles 
had fed the first fifty or hundred they should 
have fed them over again, and then should 
go back and feed them, the same fifty or 
hundred, once more ; while all the other 
fifties or hundreds went hungry I 

But do you know that is just what some 
people want us to do with the Gospel which 


196 The Missionary Miracle 

we sometimes call the bread of life ? They 
want this group in the United States to be 
fed, and then fed again, and still again, over 
and over, while that group in India, and that 
group in China and those groups in Africa, 
all so hungry, or are not fed at all. But Jesus 
didn’t do that way. Each one of the whole 
company was fed : each one got enough, in- 
cluding, I am sure, the little boy. “They 
did all eat and were filled,” the story says. 
Jesus was careful not to waste anything, so 
He said to His disciples, after the people had 
finished eating, “ Gather up the crumbs.” 

And now a very strange thing happened. 
You must remember that each one of the 
people got just one meal ; but when the 
apostles gathered up what was left, each one 
of these twelve men had a big basket full of 
food, enough, I suppose, to last him several 
days, perhaps enough meals for a week. 
You see they had been helping Jesus and 
that is always the way : those who help Him 
get the most. 

When Jesus saw that He and His apostles 
could not get any rest on that side of the 
lake He made His apostles sail away in the 
boat, then He sent the people back home, 
but He went off by Himself, as He often did, 
to pray. 


XXV 


The Missionary and the Slave 

T HERE was once a little city in Greece 
called Colosse. It was a heathen 
city, but some of the people had be- 
come Christians. At that time, only a few 
years after Jesus left the earth, most of the 
Christians were very poor. I don’t think 
there were enough of them in one city to 
have church buildings, for they used to hold 
their church services in their own houses. 
In those days the rich people did one thing 
which we now think is wrong: even the 
Christian people kept slaves, that is, their 
servants were people whom they owned. 

We don’t know much about the people of 
Colosse, but in one of the houses lived a 
Christian family. They seem to have been 
well-to-do people. The man’s name was 
Philemon, and he had a wife called Apphia. 
Some people think that the man named 
Archippus who lived in their house with 
them was their son, but I don’t know about 
that. Philemon’s house was one of those in 
which church services were held, and per- 
197 


198 The Missionary and the Slave 

haps Archippus was a minister and con- 
ducted the worship ; anyhow, the Christians 
in Colosse would often come to Philemon's 
house to worship, and he and his wife were 
kind to those among them who were poor. 
They did all they could to help them ; in fact 
they did so much that people in other parts 
of the country heard about their kindness 
and were glad that there was such a fine 
Christian family in Colosse. 

Philemon was one of those who kept slaves, 
and among his slaves was a man named 
Onesimus. No matter how kind their mas- 
ters were I suppose some of the slaves would 
think that no one had a right to own them 
and they would want to go free. And then 
too there must have been a good many slaves 
who didn’t know very much and who were 
not very careful what they did. Onesimus 
was like that. Even with such a kind master 
and mistress as Philemon and Apphia ap- 
peared to have been he didn’t like being a 
slave : he wanted to be free. So one day he 
made up his mind that he would be a slave 
no longer. It may have been one night 
after he had done something wrong and was 
whipped for it. Anyhow, he stole some 
money and ran away. 

At this time that man Paul, who was in the 


The Missionary and the Slave 199 

shipwreck we read about, was in Rome 
where you may remember the soldiers had 
taken him as a prisoner. There he was in 
that great city in prison. I don’t believe it 
was much like one of our prisons, for he hired 
the house himself and some of his friends 
lived with him, and others could come to see 
him at any time. Very often people came to 
his house and he preached to them, just as he 
used to do when he was travelling about as a 
missionary. One thing must have been very 
hard for him though, for he was an old man 
now ; he was always chained to a soldier. 
Night and day one of the Roman soldiers 
was fastened to him by a chain. I suppose 
they did this so that he could not run away : 
wherever he went this soldier, his keeper, 
would go with him. 

Poor Onesimus thought he would be safe if 
only he could get to some big city where there 
would be so many people that nobody would 
notice him, so he went to this great city of 
Rome where Paul was. I imagine he soon 
spent all his money, for things we get wrong- 
fully don’t last long. Very soon he must 
have been just like a tramp, with no money 
and no home and afraid all the time that 
some one would find him and take him back 
to slavery. 


2oo The Missionary and the Slave 

I don’t know how he heard about Paul, but I 
imagine that one day he was talking with some 
one who had been up where Paul lived and had 
heard him preach. Paul was such a wonder- 
ful preacher that this man would say to this 
poor runaway slave, “ Onesimus, if you want 
to hear a man who knows how to talk you 
go to hear Paul ; he will be glad to see you 
and to talk with you, if you want him to.” 
This would seem strange to Onesimus, for he 
was only a slave ; he didn’t suppose anybody 
cared for him. But he kept thinking about 
it, and he heard more and more about Paul 
from other men who had heard him. At last 
he said to himself : “ I can’t be any worse off ; 
I’ll go and hear him.” 

So one day there he is in the crowd listen- 
ing to Paul talking to the people who have 
come to hear him. It isn’t hard to tell what 
Paul would say, for when he preached there 
was one thing he was always saying to the 
people : “ I was a great sinner once ; I did a 
great many things that were wrong ; but 
suddenly Jesus spoke to me and saved me 
and made a new man of me. I am a Chris- 
tian. Won’t you trust Him? He will save 
you too.” As he listened poor Onesimus 
must have said, “ He means me. He says 
Jesus will save any one who is poor and 


The Missionary and the Slave 201 

lonely and wretched. That must mean me." 
And as soon as he got a chance he went to 
Paul and had a talk with him. Paul wel- 
comed him and said, “ Yes, that’s just what 
I mean. This Jesus who saved me will save 
you too.” At last Onesimus decided he 
would be a Christian and Paul baptized him. 

Onesimus seemed to be entirely changed, 
for after this he and Paul were great friends. 
Onesimus helped Paul in all sorts of ways, 
so that Paul looked upon him as his own 
child and loved him as if he had been his 
own son. 

Onesimus must often have heard Paul 
pray, and I feel sure that one day he heard 
him pray for his friend Philemon who lived in 
Colosse, for Paul did pray for Philemon. 
After that Paul saw that something was 
troubling Onesimus, and he made up his 
mind he would find out what it was. So 
like the kind man he was he said one day, 
“Onesimus, where did you live before you 
came to Rome?” Onesimus told him in 
Colosse. “ Oh, yes,” said Paul. “ Although 
I’ve never been there myself, some of my 
friends have, and they have often told me 
about a Christian family living in Colosse. 
They say the man and his wife are very good 
to the poor Christians who love them. The 


202 The Missionary and the Slave 

man’s name is Philemon.” As soon as he 
said that name Paul saw that he was on the 
right track, and he said, “ Why, Onesimus, 
what’s the matter?” for the poor fellow turned 
his face away as if he didn’t want Paul to 
see him. And then it all came out. Onesi- 
mus said : “ I lived with Philemon and 
Apphia. I am their slave. They were 
good to me, as they are good to everybody. 
But I was bad to them. I stole some money 
from Philemon and ran away. That’s why I 
came to Rome.” Can’t you imagine how 
surprised Paul was? “That’s bad, Onesi- 
mus,” he must have said. “ I would like to 
keep you with me, but there’s only one thing 
to do. You are a Christian now ; you must 
go back to Colosse and pay back the money 
you have taken from your master.” Onesi- 
mus didn’t like this. He told Paul how 
Philemon would have a right to kill him for 
stealing. “Yes, yes,” Paul answered, “I 
know all that ; and I don’t know what I’ll do 
without you myself, but you must go back.” 
“But what shall I say?” asks Onesimus. 
“You needn’t say anything. I have just 
written a letter to the Christians in Colosse, 
and my friend Tychicus is going there in a 
day or two with it. I’ll write a letter to 
Philemon, and explain the whole matter. 


The Missionary and the Slave 203 

He knows me and I think he’ll do what I 
ask him to do. You can go along with 
Tychicus.” 

Then Paul sat down and wrote this beauti- 
ful letter which we still have in our Bible : 

“ Dear Philemon, Apphia 
and Archippus : 

“ I often remember you in my prayers 
when I hear about the good you are doing. 
I’m an old man now, and I’m in prison ; I 
want to ask a favour for my child Onesimus, 
who was formerly your slave and who is now 
a Christian, and who is as dear to me as my 
own life. O ! I wish I might keep him here 
to help me, but I feel that he ought to go 
back to you. He has told me his story, and 
it may be God took this way of parting you 
and him for a little while in order that he 
might come back to you no longer a slave 
but a Christian brother. If you think of me 
as your friend, receive him as you would me. 
If he has stolen anything, I’ll pay it for him. 

“I am sure that you will do even more 
than I have asked ; and I wish you would 
get ready for a visit from me. Epaphras, 
from your town, who is here with me in 
Rome, sends his kindest regards, and so do 
the other friends who are here. 

“Your friend, 

“ Paul.” 


We know nothing more about Onesimus, 


204 The Missionary and the Slave 

but can’t you imagine him going back to 
Colosse and taking Paul’s letter to his old 
master ? How surprised Philemon must 
have been to see the runaway ! And I am 
sure he treated him kindly for Paul’s sake. 
Some people say that after that Onesimus 
became a splendid Christian man, and I don’t 
wonder. How could he help it with such a 
friend ? 


XXVI 


How Jesus Rose Again 

W HEN our Lord was here on earth 
He walked all over the parts of the 
country called Galilee and Judea, 
curing sick people and telling everybody 
about His heavenly Father. Every little 
while He would tell His special friends that 
some day wicked men would kill Him, but 
that after He had been in the grave for three 
days He would come out of it alive. Well, 
the sad day did come at last. Wicked men 
in the city of Jerusalem took Jesus and put 
Him to death. They chose the cruelest 
way : they nailed Him to a cross where He 
died. 

I am sorry to have to tell you that the very 
friends Jesus thought the most of seem to 
have forgotten everything He had told them 
about coming out of the grave, for when the 
soldiers had crucified Him, and He was dead, 
every one of them ran away. His poor 
mother, Mary, and a few other good women 
stood there by the cross where He was suf- 
fering, but the men had left Him. 

205 


206 How Jesus Rose Again 

In those days the people considered our 
Saturday their Sunday, that is, their Sunday 
began when the sun went down on Friday 
night, and lasted until the same time on 
Saturday. It was Friday when Jesus was 
crucified, and the Jews didn’t think it was 
right to leave any one on the cross on their 
Sunday, so they were anxious that Jesus’ 
body should be taken down as soon as 
possible. 

There was a rich man living in Jerusalem 
who had been a sort of friend of Jesus — that 
is, he wanted to be His friend, but he didn’t 
like to have his neighbours know that he 
was Jesus’ friend. His name was Joseph. 
He was what we would call a prominent man 
in the city and was a rich man. Joseph had 
a garden just outside the city, and in it he 
had built a tomb in the rock where he ex- 
pected to be buried when he died. People 
often did this in those days. When he heard 
that Jesus was dead he went to Pilate, the 
governor, and asked if he might bring Jesus’ 
body to this new tomb in his garden. Pilate 
was greatly surprised and said, “ Is He dead 
so soon?” and when they answered, “Yes,” 
he told Joseph he could take the body and 
bury it. It was late now, so Joseph wrapped 
up the body of Jesus and hurriedly put it in 



















‘ 










an 

■ 
























WILDE’S BIBLE PCTURES. 400. W. A. BOUGUEREAU. 1 825 — 

HOLY WOMEN AT THE TOMB. 


his new tomb in the rock. Over the door- 
way he rolled a great stone. Those cow- 
ardly men who had run away paid no atten- 
tion to what was going on ; only the few 
loving women sat there by the tomb crying. 

On Saturday morning the Roman soldiers 
went to Pilate, the governor, and said to 
him, “ We remember that this man when He 
was alive said that He would come out of 
the grave alive after three days. It is pos- 
sible that His friends may go to the grave 
and take out His body and carry it away. 
Then they will tell the people that He has 
come out of the grave alive and the people 
will think He is a wonderful man. Let us 
seal the stone and guard it with soldiers 
so that nobody can get into the tomb and 
He surely can’t get out.” Pilate said, “ Go 
ahead ; make it as sure as you can.” So the 
soldiers took a piece of string and stretched 
it across the stone which Joseph had rolled 
in front of the door of the tomb and fastened 
it to the rock on each side w T ith some sort of 
sealing wax. Then they put some soldiers 
in front of the tomb to guard it. “ Now,” 
they said, “ we’ll see if He ever comes out of 
there again.” 

All day Saturday the soldiers were there 
on guard ; and all that day the people were 


208 How Jesus Rose Again 

worshipping in the temple and keeping their 
Sunday. I don’t know what those other 
men were doing ; those whom Jesus consid- 
ered His especial friends. Some of them 
had been fishermen, and they seem to have 
started back to their old work. But the 
good women, they could hardly wait; they 
had seen the burial and knew it had to be 
done over again, but the law didn’t permit 
them to do any work on Saturday, their Sun- 
day. But all that day they were preparing 
the new cloth and the spices and ointment, 
the things which were used at funerals in 
those days. 

But very early on the morning of the third 
day, that would be on Sunday, out in that 
garden of Joseph’s there was an earthquake. 
An angel came down from heaven and rolled 
the stone away from the door of the tomb. 
The soldiers who were on guard were so 
frightened that they fell down as if they were 
dead. When they came to their senses again 
they ran to the city as fast as they could and 
told the people what had happened. This 
did not please the enemies of Jesus, so they 
gave the soldiers some money and said to 
them, “ You must say that His friends came 
in the night and took Him away while you 
were asleep. If the governor should hear 


How Jesus Rose Again 209 

that some of his soldiers had been asleep at 
their posts we will make it all right with 
him.” After that, instead of telling the truth, 
the soldiers told the people that Jesus’ friends 
had taken His body away in the night. A 
great many people believed it, and some be- 
lieve it even now after so many years. 

While that was going on Mary and the 
other women were walking along towards 
the tomb and the thing that troubled them 
most was how they were going to get in 
where the body of Jesus was : that high stone 
was in front of the door of the tomb, and how 
could they move it? They knew that they 
could do nothing unless they could get into 
the tomb, so they kept asking each other, 
“Who will roll away the stone for us?” 
You can imagine their surprise then when 
they came within sight of the tomb and found 
that the stone was already rolled away. 

But their surprise was soon turned into 
sadness and fear for when they looked into 
the tomb it was empty ; they saw at once 
that Jesus’ body wasn’t there : they thought 
some one had stolen it, so one of them ran 
and found two of Jesus’ particular friends, 
named Peter and John, and cried out, “ Some 
one has taken Jesus’ body out of the tomb, 
and we don’t know where they have buried 


210 


How Jesus Rose Again 

it” Finally when all the women were stand- 
ing near the tomb in fear and trembling an 
angel said to them, “ Don’t be frightened. I 
know you are looking for Jesus. You ought 
not to look for a living man here in a grave. 
Jesus isn’t here ; He has risen, as He said He 
would. Don’t you remember He told you 
He would come out of the grave alive after 
three days ? Come and see the place where 
Joseph put His body and then go and tell 
His friends what you have seen.” When 
they heard this they ran as quickly as they 
could to the friends of Jesus and told them 
about it. 

Many people, who had seen Jesus crucified 
and buried, came to the tomb and when they 
saw that it was empty they were frightened 
and hardly knew what to do. 

One of the women who had come to the 
tomb, Mary Magdalene, to whom Jesus had 
been a good friend, still stood there crying. 
She stooped down and looked into the tomb, 
and as she did so she saw two angels. One 
of them said to her, “ Why are you crying? ” 
She looked at him and said, “ Some one has 
taken away my Lord and I don’t know where 
they have buried Him. Can’t you tell me ? ” 
As she said this she heard some one moving, 
and turning she looked back and saw a man 


211 


How Jesus Rose Again 

she thought was the gardener. He came up 
and asked her the same question the angel 
had asked, “Why are you crying?” She 
answered Him, “ Oh, sir, if you are the one 
who has taken Him away tell me where you 
have buried Him and I will go there.” Then 
Jesus, for it was Jesus who stood there, called 
her by her name, “ Mary.” She looked up 
and knew who it was, and called Him by 
a name she often used, “ Teacher.” It was 
true indeed ; He had come out of the grave 
alive. 


CHILD STUDY 


« 


The Natural Way in Moral Training 

By Patterson Du Bois. 3 d Edition , net 1.25. 

“ Mr. Du Bois has earned the right to be heard 
attentively on the treatment of children. He teaches 
adults about children in much the same way as he 
would have them teach children. We do not know 
any book in which the average reader can find a clearer 
setting forth of the new psychology.”— Congregationalism 


The Teacher and the Child 

By H. Thiselton Mark. With Introduction by 

Patterson Du Bois. 12mo, Cloth, • net .75. 

“No better book of its class has appeared of late. 
Mr. Mark’s way of getting at and presenting truth to 
the inexpert is most delightful. He thinks clearly and 
speaks no less so, he avoids technicality, he is pointed 
and direct in meeting teachers’ difficulties and in show- 
ing the way out of them. His examples are pertinent and 
illuminating. His spirit is devoted and reverent.”— 
Sunday School Times. 


The Child for Christ 

A manual for parents, pastors and Sunday 

school workers. By A. H. McKinney, Ph. D. 

Introduction by A. F. Schauffler, Ph. D. 

Cloth, ------ net .50. 

“ How to adapt the knowledge of the adult to the 
receptivity of the child is what many parents and 
teachers desire to know. They will find enlightenment 
here from one of experience and insight. The personal 
and vital way in which the natural coming of the 
children to Christ as here exhibited is at 'an antipodal 
from the theological way, which is remembered with 
thankfulness that it has been superseded.”— Outlook. 


The Sunday School Teacher 

A Practical manual. Prof. H. M. Hamill, D.D. 

New edition, 13 th thousand. Cloth, * .60. 

“ Dr. Hamill is one of the most successful teachers 
in the country. In this volume he touches upon almost 
every question on which teachers need help, and in 
every case gives suggestions which will be of great 
value.”— Westminster Teacher % 


BEGINNERS 


Kindergarten Bible Stories 

Old Testament. By Laura Ella Cragin. Illus- 
trated, 12mo, Cloth, ... net 1.25. 
“Altogether it is the best book of Bible stories we 
have seen in a long time. The author’s gift in bringing 
out the lessons of the stories is especially noted.” — 
Christian Observer . 

Bible Lessons for Little Beginners 

By Margaret J. Cushman Haven. Vol. I. 
Fifty-two Lessons, Comprising the first year’s 
Course. Cloth, - - - - net .75. 
Vol. II. Fifty-two Lessons, Comprising the 
second year’s Course. Cloth, - net .75. 
Portfolios of 50 Suggested Pictures for each 
volume. Each, - net .50. 

Packet of 52 Reward Tickets for each volume. 

Each, net ,12. 

“ Mrs. Haven has at last struck a chord that vibrates 
In the Iheart of. every one who has taught the smaller 
chidren in the Sunday school and tried to tell them the 
splendid stories of the Bible.” — AT. Y. Tribune, 

Picture Work 

By W. L. Hervey. Paper - - net .25. 

This “Picture Work” includes more than pictures 
painted with a brush. 

PRIMARY 


Practical Primary Plans 

By Israel P. Black. Illustrated with diagrams. 
Revised and enlarged. 16mo, Cloth, net 1.00. 
“The author goes through all the material, physical 
and spiritual requirements for successful primary teach- 
ing .” — Christian Advocate. 

Three Years With the Children 

Or three times fifty-two five minute sermons. 
By Amos R. Wells. 12mo, Cloth, - 1.25. 

“Abundant and suggestive methods for all sorts of 
addresses to children, blackboard talks, object lessons, 
conversations, etc .” — Baptist Union . 

Our Children for Christ 

By Rev. Doremus Scudder. A Series of Cate- 
chetical Lessons on the Religion of our Lord 
Jesus Christ. 16mo, Paper, * - net .10 


PRIMARY 


Object Lessons for Children 

Or, Hooks and Eyes, Truth Linked to Sight. 
By C. H. Tyndall, Ph. D. Illustrated, 4th 
Edition . 12mo, Cloth, - - . 1.25. 

“ For busy Sunday school workers and others, we 
know no better work of its kind.” — Cumberland 
Presbyterian . 

Talks to Children 

By T. T. Eaton, D.D. 3d Edition. 12mo, 

Cteth, Gilt Top, 1.00. 

“It reproduces Scripture History in the terms of 
modern life, and gpves it both a vivid setting before the 
youthful imagination and a firm grip on the youthful 
conscience.” — Independent. 

The Shepherd Psalm for Children 

By Josephine L. Baldwin. With half-tone 
Frontispiece and 13 outline Illustrations, 16mo, 
Cloth, - .35. 

•‘Equally adapted to teach the teacher how to 
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The Lord’s Prayer for Children 

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Cloth, net .50. 

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leaders of Junior classes.” — N. Y. Observer. 

Eighty Good Times Out of Doors 

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trated, net .75. 

“ Just the thing for workers among children, and 
the question “What shall we play next?” will find a 
ready response in this helpful volume.” — Christian 
Intelligencer. 

Seed for Spring-time Sowing 

A Wall Roll for the use of Primary, Sabbath 
School and Kindergarten Teachers. Compiled 
by Mrs. Robert Pratt. .... .75. 

Favorite Psalms — The Lord’s Prayer — Ten 
Commandments — Beatitudes — Many other 
choice Biblical selections, all in very clear type 
for wall use. 


THE BLACKBOARD 


Pencil Points for Preacher and Teacher 

A Second Volume of Blackboard and Object 
Teaching. 

By Rev. R. F. Y. Pierce. 2 d Edition , Illus- 
trated, Cloth. net 1.25. 

“A useful volume by the recognized exponent of the 
art of conveying Scripture truth by means of blackboard 
sketches and object lessons. Crowded with illustra- 
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Truth.’ Westminister . 


Pictured Truth 

A Handbook of Blackboard and Object Teach- 
ing. By R. F. Y. Pierce. With Illustrations 
by the author, jd Edition. Cloth, - 1.25. 

“ The blackboard in the Sunday School may be en- 
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of such a book .” — Congregationalism 


Chalk 

What We Can Do With It. Practical Work 

with Chalk and Blackboard. By Mrs. Ella N. 

Wood. 2 d Edition. Illustrated, - net .'75. 

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anything to do with the education of children, to make 
an ally of the blackboard.. ..The book will help ministers 
to hold their boys and girls; it will be invaluable tc 
Junior Endeavor superintendents and Primary Sunday 
school teachers.”— C. E . World. 


Children’s Meetings 

And How to Conduct Them. By Lucy J. Rider 
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lines, Diagrams, Music, etc. Introduction by 
Bishop Vincent. Cloth, - - net 1.00. 

Paper, ------ net .50. 

“ With the aid of its blackboard sketches it aims to 
teach the leader to talk with children, to encourage the 
memorizing of Bible verses, and to make use of the 
lessons from nature.” — C. E. World. 





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